Rurouni Familiar
by Slavok
Summary: It's a dangerous business, becoming a wanderer. You step onto that road, and there's no telling where you might end up. But for Soujiro, it was never about the destination, it was about finding the truth, and if he finds it in Halkeginia, that's perfectly fine.
1. Chapter 1

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter One

"Not all who wander are lost."  
-Tolkien

It was, Soujiro decided, a good day. Most days were, but if anything that made them even better. The sky was clear, he had food to eat–an increasingly rare experience–and twenty armed policemen to keep him company.

"Seta Soujiro, you are under arrest," one of the policemen said. A bit of his ear was sliced off. All twenty of them wore sharp blue uniforms. "If you resist, we will take you by force."

"Do you mind if I finish eating first?" Soujiro asked. "The nice lady at the dango shop gave me some, and I don't want it to go to waste." He bit off a dumpling. "It's really good, actually. You should buy some later." When Soujiro told her that he had no home, food, family, or money, the old woman had given him some anyway, and seemed convinced that he was a "sweet boy," whatever that was.

The lead police officer gripped his sword tightly and hesitated. Apparently, polite conversation wasn't what he was expecting from Mr. Shishio's top swordsman. "No! And I want your hands where I can see them!"

Soujiro smiled and waved.

"Why are we hesitating?" another policeman demanded. "There's twenty of us, one of him, and he doesn't even have a sword."

The last part was true, unfortunately. He'd managed to lose a second sword to Mr. Himura. No one else seemed to have that luck, but Mr. Himura had shredded the edge of his first sword beyond repair and cut his second one in half. The fact that he was unarmed was the only reason the police had dared confront him at all.

"Don't underestimate him," the first police officer said. "He killed the Prime Minister and it took the Battousai himself to take him down."

"I _allegedly_ killed the Prime Minister," Soujiro said. "No one saw me do it." He had heard that the coachman was very surprised when he opened the door. "And losing to Mr. Himura isn't that impressive. Plenty of people have done it. Heck, I've met people who have done it _twice_."

"That's not important," the police officer snapped. "You are unarmed and surrounded. Will you or will you not surrender?"

Soujiro shook his head. He had heard that most of the rest of Mr. Shishio's men had gotten government jobs in exchange for amnesty, and that didn't sound too bad, but it wasn't for him. "Thanks, but I can't. I have some serious wandering to get done."

"Then you leave me no choice."

"No, I guess not," Soujiro said with a smile. "Sorry about that." Even though he wasn't armed, he wasn't afraid. It had been so long since he'd been afraid, he wasn't sure he remembered how. He still didn't know what to do with them though. Mr. Shishio would have killed them all, but Mr. Himura wouldn't have killed any of them. Maybe he should compromise and kill half of them. He closed his eyes.

And heard the rain.

He opened his eyes, and it was sunny again. The Battousai had left him that. Ever since their second fight, he kept on remembering things he had long since forgotten, digging up the past like an open grave.

"Actually," he said. "Before we get started, could you answer a question for me, Mr. Policeman?"

He frowned. "What?"

"Is it wrong to kill people?" Mr. Himura thought so. That was kind of a hypocritical belief for a manslayer, but it was one that he lived by. Mr. Shishio, on the other hand, was above things like morality. And Soujiro was, well, he was open minded.

"Of course it is," the policeman snapped. "That's why we're arresting you for _murder._ "

"So if I resist, what are you going to do to me?" Soujiro asked. "I know you won't kill me, because that would be wrong."

The policeman glared at him and raised his sword to attack.

That was when the ball of light appeared.

It was six feet wide, bright, and Soujiro couldn't think of any other words to describe it. Other than that it was eating him.

"I have to admit, that was a neat trick," Soujiro said, trying to pull his arm out. It was stuck good. "I did not expect that in the least."

"Step back, men!" the policeman ordered. "We don't know what he's trying!"

"What _I'm_ trying? I'm trying not to get eaten! What are _you_ doing?" Soujiro asked.

"Whatever this is, it's not going to work!"

"But if you're not doing this, and I'm not doing this, then..." He looked around, but he didn't see a third party he recognized. Not that anyone he'd recognize could do this.

"Hey, look, this thing is trying to eat me," he said cheerfully. "I don't suppose one of you would be willing to lend me a hand? No? Is that out of the question?"

The policemen looked at him as though he had grown a second head. Or was being eaten alive. More like the second one.

His arm could go deeper into the globe, but he couldn't pull it out, kind of like that fingertrap Miss Yumi had given him to play with once. And, if the globe worked the same way...

He bit off the last dumpling, just in case he didn't survive. And he jumped in.

Then a lot of things happened that he didn't expect. It was a bit comforting when he found out that no one else expected them either.

WWW

It was not a good day for Louise de La Valliére. When she pulled out her wand and cast the summoning spell, she expected nothing. She'd blow something up, people would laugh at her and remind her of her nickname a few hundred more times, and in a few days they'd forget it in two days after she blew up something else.

Instead she had summoned a commoner. If she had summoned a lousy familiar, that would have been a relative success, but a commoner? It was a joke, the kind that her classmates would remember for the rest of her life. And then the peasant kept the same, stupid smile on his face, even when she ki–sealed the contract.

No, not a good day at all.

After the rest of her class got tired of laughing at her, they left her alone with her familiar. "Well," she said, determined to make the most of a typically bad situation, "I guess I'll have to come up with a name for you. I can't go on forever just calling you peasant."

"You could call me Soujiro," her familiar offered. "That is my name."

"Soujiro?" she repeated. It sounded dumb. "I guess it fits you. My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière."

"That is a lot of name," he said.

"It's a noblewoman's name!" she snapped. Her familiar wasn't making fun of her, was he? The Founder knew she had enough of that from everyone else.

"Okay, Miss Louise Fran...Françosie Le...Le Vall..."

"Miss Louise will do. Or just Master if you want to keep things disyllabic."

"Sure thing, Master Louise."

"And what are you smiling about, anyway?" It was proper for a peasant to be pleased to serve a noble, honored even, but cheerful? Honestly, she'd prefer him to be a bit apologetic after making her look foolish in front of her entire class.

"Am I smiling? I hadn't noticed."

 _Fantastic._ She stood up and started walking toward the main tower. "Soujiro. Come." She didn't look back, but she heard him walking behind her.

"So, where are we, Miss Louise?"

"Don't you recognize the Tristain Academy? This is where nobles from all over the civilized world come here to learn, well, everything. Though the only commoners who come here are the ones who work here, so I suppose you wouldn't know it by sight."

She glanced back to see his response. He admired the stonework as they ascended the staircase with the same cheerful smile on his face, as though he were mildly pleased at the view instead of properly awed at being at the center of civilization. Well, maybe he just wasn't bright enough to comprehend what was going on. He was, after all, just a peasant, and peasants had simple minds suited for the simple world they lived in, leaving the thinking to their betters.

She opened the door to her bedroom. "And this is my room. You'll be living here for as long as I do. Feel free to get some straw from the stables if the floor is too hard for you."

"You have a bed with stilts!"

"I...what?"

"Your bed," Soujiro said, pointing. "It's on stilts."

Louise looked at her bed. It was just a normal bed. Sure, it wasn't a mattress on the floor, but...had her familiar never seen a bed before? Did peasants just sleep on the floor like animals? She suddenly felt sorry for the boy.

"Oh, you poor, ignorant peasant." She pulled her nightgown from her dresser and changed into it. "As my familiar, there are a few duties I expect of you. I'll tell you what they are as I figure out what I need as well as what, if anything, you're capable of." She handed him a pile of clothes. "You can start off with laundry. I expect my clothes washed and set up to dry before you go to bed."

"Sure thing, Miss Louise," he said. "What's a familiar?"

"Don't you know–no, I suppose you wouldn't." If he didn't even know what a bed was, she couldn't expect him to know anything else. "You're a familiar. Do you remember all the other animals in the field when you came here? Those are familiars too. Mages summon them via the Summon Familiar spell, and they are expected to protect their master if their master is in danger, although mostly they act as a second pair of eyes for the mage who summoned them and fetch spell components when necessary. Understand?"

"Protect?" he repeated, and there was a glint of...something (Interest? Surprise?) in his blue eyes that she couldn't place.

"Technically, but I wouldn't sweat it. No one has tried to kill me in the past sixteen years of my life, and I doubt that they're all magically going to want to try now that you're here."

"That's a relief," he said with a laugh. "I've never protected anyone before. I wouldn't know where to begin."

"Well, you don't look like you could handle much anyway." And he didn't. Louise was the last person to guess someone's age based off of their appearance, but Soujiro was short, skinny, and had the face of a child. Wherever he was from, he clearly had an easy life before this. ut it was getting late. She'd deal with him in the morning.

"Get to work."

WWW

The whole place seemed vaguely Western. Soujiro didn't know much about Western culture except that they had weird clothes and trains. He didn't see any trains yet, but they had weird clothes up the wazoo.

Houji mentioned their beds once after returning from a trip. Apparently the West was full of rats so everyone slept on elevated beds so the rats didn't crawl into bed with you. Personally, Soujiro would be more concerned about rolling over and falling off, but that was him.

As he walked down the stairs with a bundle of clothes in his arms, he saw a girl in a black and white dress carrying a pile of clothes just like he was. "Do you know where I can wash these?"

The girl looked at him, then she looked at him again, then she smiled. " _Absolutely_. You can come with me. I was just on the way there."

"Thanks," he said. "My name's Soujiro."

"I'm Siesta. Are you new here?"

"It's my first day."

"Then I'd be happy to show you around. Have you washed noble's clothes before?"

"I've washed normal clothes before." But even that was a long time ago. Mr. Shishio always had more important thing for him to do.

"Yeah, well, nobles can be pretty particular about their clothes. It can be pretty complicated at first, but you'll get the hang of it."

"Thanks, Miss Siesta."

She smiled and seemed a bit surprised. "You're welcome, _Mr_. Soujiro. So what do you think of your first day?"

"So far it seems like the easiest job I've ever had. I mean, laundry? That's what I got to do growing up when all the _hard_ work was done, and my last job was murder. So far I like my last boss better, though, but I don't know the new one that well."

"Really? What was your last boss like?"

"He was...oh boy, he was _amazing._ Mr. Shishio expected a lot, but he was always teaching me things and he never even got mad when I broke his expensive swords."

"Wow, he seems really nice."

"A lot of people didn't like him, but I thought he was pretty cool." He followed Siesta outside. It was surprising how quickly it had gotten dark. He looked up at the night sky to see how brightly the stars were shining, and for the first time since he faced Mr. Himura, he stopped smiling.

There was a second moon in the sky. He blinked and tried to see through the optical illusion or, or...whatever was going on, but there it was, clear as...night. Siesta looked up to see what he was staring at, but didn't notice anything unordinary.

He started laughing. "What are you laughing at?" she asked, but he couldn't explain. He had gotten free food, was detained by the police, had gotten eaten by a ball of light, and after only two weeks as a rurouni, he had managed to wander right off the planet.

"Nothing," he said finally. "I'm just having a good day."

WWW

A/n Rurouni Kenshin was the first anime that I really liked, and Soujiro (or Sojiro or Soujirõ or whatever) was my favorite character. I already wrote the first four chapters, but never bothered publishing them because I was afraid that someone might read them. If there's anything that I can add to make the plot more coherent or true to the characters, leave a review and let me know.


	2. Chapter 2

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Two

"If fighting could provide us with the truth, nobody would make any mistakes in their lives. A person's life is not that easy. The truth you must learn from yourself, from how you live your life."  
-Rurouni Kenshin

Soujiro woke up bright and early to meet the day. "Good morning, Master Louise."

He had a lot to think about throughout the night, but everything seemed to have settled. He had stumbled into another world, or had been brought into one, leaving him a bit beyond the jurisdiction of the police. They'd probably spend the rest of their lives looking for the person who killed Lord Okubo until all that remained of him was his face on their wanted posters.

Meanwhile, he'd be here. A new world, a new life.

A fresh start.

Louise stirred in her bed. "What? Who are you?" She rubbed her eyes. "Oh, right, my familiar. You're a morning person, aren't you?" She groaned

"Only when the morning's this nice." The dawn of a new beginning. "And besides, we have an east facing window to see the sunrise." He threw the curtains open. Louise yelped, pulled the covers over her head, and fell out of the bed.

WWW

Soujiro wasn't a bad servant. In fact, as far as servants went, he was perfect, not that Louise expected much from servants. He followed her around, always did what she asked, and never complained.

Of course, if she wanted a servant, she could have just hired one. Getting a familiar was a once in a lifetime event, and while everyone else got a familiar that could fly or breathe fire, Louise couldn't help but feel cheated when she ended up with something that anyone could get for a working wage.

"Hey, look at the familiar Louise the Zero summoned!"

And then there was that. _My classmates are heckling me again. Is it Tuesday already?_

"I bet she just grabbed some commoner off the street because she couldn't do the spell properly."

Louise fumed. It wasn't that her familiar was bad. Montmorency had summoned a _frog_ for crying out loud. "I did no such thing!" she said, standing up from her seat. "I performed the summoning ritual just like everyone else!"

"Yeah, and got a familiar that can cast spells just as well as you can." More laughter.

"Well, you know what?" Louise said. "You can...just shut up!" Brilliant comeback. She hated her life sometimes.

"That's enough, class," Colbert said, stepping up to the front of the lecture hall.

"But Mr. Colbert–"

"I said, that's enough," he said again. "I'll not have my students squabbling. Nobles should know better."

Louise hung her head. "Yes, Mr. Colbert."

"Also, Miss Valliêre? I would like a word with you and your familiar after class."

Louise blinked. Was she in trouble? But she didn't do anything. Had she? Her mind raced through the thousand different possibilities that could have been exaggerated or misinterpreted as an infraction of the rules.

She hoped that Colbert didn't say anything important during class, because she didn't pay attention to any of it.

WWW

"You're not in trouble, I was just wondering if your familiar could help me with my research," Colbert said afterwards.

"Oh," Louise said. "I mean, of course. But how can my familiar help you?"

"That's simple. We know everything there is to know about the mage's side of the summoning ritual, but comparatively little about the familiar's side. Some familiars learn to talk in time, but by then, they have usually forgotten most of the experience. It has gotten to the point where we assume that the creatures we summon began their existence when we summoned them and forget that they had lives long before we met them."

Louise shifted uncomfortably in her chair, but didn't respond.

"And so–I didn't get your name, Familiar."

"Soujiro, sir," he said. "Seta Soujiro."

Colbert scribbled something down on a piece of paper in a script Soujiro couldn't read. "Then, Seta Soujiro, could you describe your experience of being summoned? Please include any details that seem relevant."

Soujiro told him what happened. He left out the part where the local police tried to arrest him. That didn't seem important, and how he came from a different world definitely wasn't. But he told Colbert about the ball of light that ate him and spit him out in front of the crowd of people.

"And how did you feel during all this?"

"Feel?"

"Were you afraid? Surprised? Confused?"

"No, not really," Soujiro said. Colbert frowned and scribbled something down. "Although, right after Louise kissed me..." Louise looked away. "My left hand started hurting really badly, like something was chewing on it."

"Really? May I see your hand?"

He removed the handguard from the back of his hand. "It doesn't hurt anymore, but...huh. That wasn't there before."

Colbert peered at the symbol that had been carved into Soujiro's hand. "Ah, that would be the Familiar Runes. All familiar's have them, although this set is rather unique." He copied them down into his notes. "Now, you said that you experienced pain when the runes formed? On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you have ever felt, how would you rate it?"

Soujiro thought back to his greatest pains. Fun times. He grimaced inwardly, but he didn't let it show on his face. "Two."

Colbert frowned. "Two?"

Soujiro nodded with a smile, and Colbert scribbled something down.

"Well, that should be all for now," he said. "Do you have any questions for me?"

"Mr. Colbert, I have one," Louise said. "Last week, you told us how the familiar we summon reflects our nature as a mage. What does summoning a commoner say about me?"

"Well, a lot of people try to read too much into their familiars," Colbert said. "The headmaster is as great a mage as they come, but he summoned a mouse, so the only thing a familiar can say reliably about its master is what element they are, and even then there's some overlap. Only fire mages summon Fire Dragons and only wind mages summon Wind dragons, but fire, wind, earth, and water mages have all summoned cats. It's amazing how that works. Sigmund Hertz wrote several books on the subject that you might be interested in. He argued that there are one hundred and eight known breeds of cats, which can be divided into groups of twenty seven for each of the four elements..."

His voice trailed off before continuing. "Of course, none of that will help you, because there's no record of anyone summoning a human, so you're traveling uncharted territory. It's really exciting if you think about it."

"Yes," Louise said flatly. "Exciting."

"As for what element humans are, I imagine that it would vary from person to person, but with a sample size of one, you can't draw any conclusions."

"So there's no way my familiar can help me know what element I am?"

"Well, you could just ask him," Colbert said. He turned to Soujiro. "What do you think, Seta Soujiro? Earth, wind, fire, or water? Which element do you feel closest to?"

Soujiro closed his eyes and looked in on himself. Fire? No, that was Mr. Shishio, not him. Soujiro didn't come close. Wind? Well, he needed to breathe to live, but that was it. Earth? He walked on it, but nothing more. Water?

He heard the sound of rain in the distance. Rain on his head, blood dripping from his sword.

Tears on his face.

"Water," he said, smiling distantly. "I'd have to say I'm water."

WWW

The second years got the rest of the day off to get to know their familiars better. Everyone was out in the courtyard with their beholders and bugbears and snakes and salamanders. And then there was Louise with her peasant, smiling politely. Well, of course he was in a good mood. No one was making fun of _him_ , they were just making fun of _her_ because of him.

And he was water? Louise had never felt any affinity for water, not that she had any affinity for anything, but given the destructive tendency of her spells, she could have sworn she was fire. Not that she had her heart set on that element. Kirche was fire, and Kirche was a jerk.

So, what? Should she practice healing spells? She could see that turning out badly for everyone involved. Soujiro pulled out a chair for her and she sat down. She got the impression that he had never had the chance to work for nobles before, but he caught on quickly to the rules of etiquette.

"Fetch some tea, will you? Peppermint if they have it. If not, then surprise me."

"Sure thing, Miss Louise," he said.

 _He's not so bad,_ Louise thought as he walked away. Sure, he wasn't the sort of familiar that she could brag about, but he could go on errands and follow basic commands while everyone else was trying to teach their familiars about the importance of the litter box.

Of course, a familiar that she couldn't brag about seemed pretty useless, because that seemed like the only thing everyone else was using theirs for.

"Check out the fine, silky coat on Whiskers!" she overheard one of her classmates say.

"He's cute, but he has nothing on Equestallion. I'm going to buy a saddle for him next Void Day. What are you going to get yours, Miranda? A nice collar?"

Louise frowned to herself. Regular familiars were easy to accessorize, but what could she do for a commoner? She couldn't get him a saddle or a collar; well, she could, but he would look rather silly in them. A nice hat, maybe? Well, she would have to take him to town on Void Day and...and where was he anyway?

 _What's taking him so long?_ It didn't take that long to fetch tea, did it? She hoped he didn't–oh, there he was.

Soujiro set a tray on the table and poured her a cup of tea.

"You took your time," Louise noted. "Did you get lost on the way to the kitchen?"

He shook his head. "No, I didn't get lost. I just ran into someone named Guiche on the way there. We talked a bit and he invited me to a duel."

"Guiche de Gramont?" That didn't sound like him. He didn't do anything unless he thought it would impress a girl. Of course, he didn't understand women that well, so even if it made sense in his mind, it would be a waste of time trying to understand it. "But duels are forbidden. Whoever's dueling could get in serious trouble."

"Oh. Well, that's not good."

"Did he say why he invited you, or was it just an offhand thing?"

"He explained it, but I didn't understand it too well. It seemed really important to him, though."

"Huh. I can't imagine what he's up to, but it would be rude to ignore a formal invitation. Did he say who was dueling whom?" She sipped her tea. Chamomile. Not what she would have picked for the middle of the day, but the day was turning out rather stressfully.

"Yep," he said. "He's dueling me."

"W-what?" she sputtered. "Why?"

"Again, he explained it, but I didn't understand it."

"What happened? You were only gone for five minutes. How'd you get challenged to a duel with a _noble_?"

"Well, I handed him a bottle of perfume that he dropped, then he got dumped, then he got dumped again, then he got slapped, and then someone threw wine in his face, and then he invited me to have a duel with him."

"But why would he want to duel you for that?"

"Like I said, I didn't understand it."

"Well, you must have offended him," she said. "Somehow. I guess there's only one thing you can do, Soujiro. You'll have to apologize."

"For what?"

"I don't know! Anything! Everything! If you look pathetic enough, he'll feel bad beating you up."

"Are you sure that would be easier than just dueling him? If I make him think I'm weak, that would just encourage him, wouldn't it?"

"What? No, that's crazy! He's a noble, you're a commoner. He has a wand, you have...you have nothing!"

"Yeah, but if I take away his wand, we'd be even, right?"

"How are you going to take away his wand? No, trust me. I'm your master, I know what's best. Just apologize, and everything will work out."

The two of them made their way to Vestri Court where Guiche waited along with a crowd of people. "So, you came," Guiche said. "I'm surprised you didn't try to run away. Shall we begin?"

"Actually, I just came to apologize," Soujiro said with a far-from-repentant smile on his face. "I'm sorry."

Guiche blinked in surprise. "Well, it seems you finally came to your senses. Be off with you then. You've wasted enough of my time already."

"Wow, you were right, Miss Louise," Soujiro said, turning to her. "That was way easier than fighting him."

Louise flinched. _You just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you?_

"Wait," Guiche called out imperiously. "Just so we are clear on the matter, what, exactly, are you apologizing for?"

Louise looked at him encouragingly. She had an urge to write out cue cards for him.

Soujiro looked to her for advice. "Everything?"

Guiche rolled his eyes. "Yes, but what specifically?"

"Well," Soujiro said. "I'm sorry that you got dumped. And I'm sorry you got dumped again. And I'm sorry those two nice girls found out you were lying to them. And I'm sorry that you got slapped and got wine thrown at you. And I'm sorry you got your frilly shirt stained. In fact, I'm sorry that you were wearing it in the first place, because it looks even more ridiculous now than it did before. And I'm sorry that your face it turning purple, but it matches your shirt better now, so it's not all bad." He turned to Louise. "Is that everything? That's all I can think of."

The crowd laughed, and for once not at Louise. She clenched her eyes shut in embarrassment all the same. _He's a dead man._

"No, that's _not_ everything," Guiche snarled. "You failed, quite spectacularly, to mention how it was all your fault."

"Was it? Well, if you say so. In that case, I'm sorry for that too."

"I've changed my mind. The duel's back on."

"But you can't!" Louise called out. If her familiar was content to just dig himself deeper, then it was up to her job to dig him out. "Duels are forbidden on school grounds."

"Duels between nobles are forbidden," Guiche said. "Duels between nobles and rude, disrespectful peasants are allowed, and are often encouraged if only to teach said peasants some manners."

"But he's not disrespectful! He's just stupid!"

"Then I'll teach him intelligence!" He took a deep breath, calming down, at least superficially. "Honestly, I don't care what I'm teaching him as long as he can't walk afterwards."

Soujiro put a hand on her shoulder. "I don't think we can talk our way out of this. But don't worry. I promise I won't hurt him."

"He's not the one I'm worried about, you idiot!"

His smile flickered in a brief moment of surprise. "You're worried about me? Wow, thanks. I haven't had anyone worry about me since Miss Yumi died."

 _Who?_ "I'm not worried about you!" she protested. "It's just that...if my familiar died after one day, it would make me look bad."

Soujiro smiled at her. "Then I promise that I won't let him hurt me either."

"You shouldn't make promises you cannot keep, pleb," Guiche said.

Soujiro smiled at him. "So, Mr. Guiche, how do these duels work? It's not to the death, I hope."

"The duel is over when one of the participants, namely you, is no longer able to fight or accepts defeat."

"Oh, okay," he said. "In that case, I accept defeat."

"What? No, you can't accept defeat until _after_ I defeat you."

"Really? I don't mean to impugn your honor or anything, but it seems like you're making these rules up as you go along."

Guiche glared at him. "Just shut up and fight me, insolent peasant! And now what? You're hopping on one foot?" Soujiro wasn't really hopping, it was more of a rhythmic bouncing, touching the toe of his foot to the ground. "Is this all just a joke to–"

Guiche's arm snapped backwards, his wand vanished, Soujiro vanished and reappeared on the other side of him, and the ground between them exploded. And for the life of her, Louise couldn't say in what order it happened.

Guiche had enough time to turn around before Soujiro vanished once more, and once more the ground between them exploded, leaving barren patches where the grass had been torn out. This time Soujiro caught Guiche by the throat and locked his arms around his neck in a headlock.

That was when Louise realized how little she knew her familiar. The speed and skill was surprising, but what disturbed her was his smile. Since he was always smiling, she assumed that he didn't have a care in the world or a thought in his head. A bit dumb, maybe, but innocent.

But with Guiche struggling for breath, clawing at his arms, Soujiro kept the exact same smile on his face, and suddenly it didn't look so innocent anymore. Suddenly it looked very, very cold.

 _My familiar could win,_ she thought. Then a less cheerful thought entered her mind. _My familiar could kill him._ If a noble and a commoner got in a fight and the commoner died, then the the commoner should have known better than to get in the way. But if the noble died, then the noble's family would demand restitution, and... _and Soujiro could end up in serious trouble._

"Enough!"

WWW

Soujiro knew swords through and through, but had learned only the basics of hand to hand combat. Still, the headlock was a basic move. The right arm went around the neck and grabbed onto the left arm by the elbow, and the left arm kept the head in place and grabbed onto the right arm by the shoulder.

It made it hard for the victim to breathe, but more importantly it cut off circulation to the head. After a minute or so, the victim would pass out. No injury, no pain, and no fight.

Of course, it was also possible to snap the victim's neck from the same position. It was such an easy thing, to kill a man. It always had been, for him. Mercy, though...mercy was the hard part. Mercy was letting an enemy live long enough to strike back when you were least ready for him. Soujiro had never showed mercy before and a month ago he would have laughed at the suggestion.

But what was the point of starting over if you never tried anything new?

"Enough!" Louise called out.

Soujiro looked up at Louise and let go of Guiche, who fell to the ground gasping for breath. Had he won already? He didn't know all the social cues of this world, so he was glad to have Louise help him out. He walked away, smiling. Mercy felt so novel and exciting!

"Not so...fast," Guiche said. He picked his wand off the ground and stood up. "I'm not _nearly_ done with you."

"What are you doing, Guiche?" Louise protested. "He beat you fair and square!"

"Fair? Hardly." His voice sounded hoarse. "A cheap trick, attacking before I was ready."

"If you weren't ready, then it was your own fault!"

"Enough! I will not be humiliated by some peasant! Face my magic, pleb!" He waved his wand, and rose petals fluttered off and formed seven suits of armor. "Perhaps my Valkyries can put you in your place."

The Valkyries, as he called them, looked like suits of armor without anyone inside of them. It was a neat trick, however Guiche had made it work, but not that impressive. Soujiro never wore armor because it slowed him down, and surprise surprise, the suits of armor were pretty slow. Soujiro could dodge their attacks all day if he wanted to, but they'd stab him with their spears if he stood still, so strangling Guiche again was out of the question.

"Hey, Mr. Guiche," Soujiro said, backing away, drawing the Valkyries away from the mage. "I'm fighting because you're fighting, but why are you fighting? Winning or losing won't make either of those nice girls your friend again. What are you trying to prove?"

"Like I said, I will not lose to a peasant," Guiche said. "I am trying to prove _myself._ "

Soujiro shook his head with a smile. "That's it? What, are you worried that you're a fictional character or something?" The Valkyries were horribly coordinated. They attacked one at a time instead of working together. Of course, Soujiro had only ever managed one set of arms and legs at a time, so seven sets at once might have been too complicated.

" _What_?"

"I'm joking," he said with a laugh. "But seriously, if you have something to prove it means that you have something to doubt. I've fought plenty of people who needed to prove something, some wish, some belief, some ideal."

And then there was Mr. Shishio. He had nothing to prove because he _knew._ Mr. Himura was the same in that regard, two swordsmen whose strength of conviction empowered every other facet of their lives.

Soujiro dodged another clumsy attack and continued. "The ones who were so unsure of themselves that they felt that they _themselves_ needed to be proven, well, let's just say that their doubt was well placed."

"You miserable peasant!" Guiche screamed. "I don't care how fast you are. Your speed is nothing compared to the power of my magic!"

"I can't agree with you there, but you are right about one thing," he admitted as he slowed down enough for the Valkyries to catch up. "I shouldn't make promises I cannot keep." He smiled at Louise. "I'm really sorry about this."

He saw a look of fear cross Louise's face before Valkyries surrounded him. Then he jumped over them, sped across the field, hopped into the air, and kneed Guiche in the face. Guiche was knocked backwards and blood spilt from his nose.

"How long do you want to keep on doing this, Mr. Guiche? I already broke my promise not to hurt you. I'd rather not break anything else."

Guiche held his nose to stem the flow of blood and rose to his feet. His face was livid. "I–will not lose–to you!"

The Valkyries arrived, not to attack but to surround Guiche and form a defensive perimeter. They were close enough together so Soujiro couldn't squeeze in between them.

"This would be so much easier if I had my sword," he said to himself. With a proper weapon, he could run up to the Valkyries and stab it through their defenses, but without a sword he was only half a swordsman. He couldn't figure out a way to win, so he turned around and walked away.

"Wait!" Guiche called out. "Where are you going?"

"I can't get through your Valkyries to get to you, and your Valkyries are too slow to get to me. We could wait here until one of us needs to use the bathroom, but that sounds like it could take a while."

The Valkyries parted and Guiche stepped forward. "You are right. We have reached a stalemate. I propose we call this a draw. No one wins, no one loses."

Soujiro shrugged. "Sure." He hadn't wanted the fight in the first place.

"Very well, commoner," Guiche said, his tone switching from enraged to magnanimous. "I would have your name."

"Soujiro. Seta Soujiro."

"Then, Seta Soujiro, I must say that despite your lowborn heritage, uncouth mannerisms, and foolish decisions, I admire your tenacity and courage."

Tenacity? Courage? Well, maybe those words meant something else here. "Thanks. I admire your..." He glanced at Louise, who appeared to be mouthing something to him. "Hair."

Guiche blinked in surprise, then ran his fingers through his golden locks. "Yes, it is rather nice, isn't it. Now that that's settled, would one of the fine water mages in the audience care to minister to my face? I have a work of art that needs to be restored."

Soujiro walked over to Louise and smiled at her. "Well," she said. "That went unexpectedly...that just went unexpectedly. Also, hair? Is that really what you thought I was saying?"

Apparently he couldn't read lips that well. "Wasn't it?"

"No, not that it hardly matters now. It's a good thing for you that Guiche is a textbook narcissist, or else he would hold a grudge for hurting his face."

"But if he wasn't a narcissist, why would he care about..."

"That's not important." She looked ahead stonily. "I take it that's not the first fight you've been in."

"It was my first one without a sword." He was surprised at how hard being unarmed made things. _Half a swordsman._

"Well, then we'll just have to get you another one. If you're going to go on a get yourself dragged into pointless fights like this, you might as well have something to defend yourself. If you get yourself, it would reflect poorly on me."

Another sword? He hadn't held a sword since Mr. Himura broke his and he became a Rurouni, beginning his career as a wandering swordsman swordless. When he had a sword with him, he felt invincible, but when he didn't, he felt...free. Still, there was _power_ in holding a sword, power that he had clung to for over half his life, and his duel with Guiche had shown him just how _weak_ he was without one.

 _But is being weak...really that bad?_

Questions were dangerous things, and that question was one he was almost too afraid to ask.

And then there were the words of Mr. Himura that he needed to consider. The idea of a sword that protected the weak was so ridiculous, so alien, so _beautiful_ that the whole reason he became a Rurouni was to test it.

And he couldn't do that without a sword.

WWW

A/n First of all, I'd like to thank all the people who took the time to read and review the first chapter. I always feel special when I get reviews. And smug. Really, it's disgusting how smug I get sometimes.

Secondly, if you're a little rusty on your Rurouni Kenshin trivia, the word Rurouni means wanderer or wandering, so the title of this story translates to Wandering Familiar. I picked it because not only is it a fusion between the titles of the two shows, but the familiar, Soujiro, had at this point become a wanderer. (Apparently the word also means masterless, which doesn't fit nearly as well, so whenever I use the word Rurouni, I'm referring to the first definition.)


	3. Chapter 3

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Three

"A sword is a weapon. The art of swordsmanship is learning how to kill. That is the truth. What Miss Kaoru says is sweet and innocent talk that only those whose hands have never been stained with the blood of men can believe. But to tell you the truth, I much prefer Miss Kaoru's sweet and innocent talk over the truth, that I do."  
-Rurouni Kenshin

The time had finally come for Soujiro to gain a new sword. For Mr. Shishio, swords had just been another tool, but each sword Soujiro had ever held had been _part of who he was_. Sometimes he had hated that part or had been terrified of it, but it had been a piece of himself all the same that made him _whole_. Each time he took up a new sword, it meant that his last sword no longer fit him, and he discarded it like a snake shedding its skin.

Except for the Wakizashi that Mr. Shishio had first given him. He wondered if his master understood what it meant that he had kept it all those years, or that he had returned it before he left.

He'd never know, and it hardly mattered now. He took a deep breath in anticipation as they reached the nearest town–and instantly regretted it. The place had a striking smell, not just in the memorable sense, but in the violent, aggressive sense as well.

The smell struck Louise, too. "Ugh, I hate this place," she said through a handkerchief she held over her face. "Let's just get this over with. Keep your eyes open for pickpockets, and I'll try to find a passable sword store. Are they called sword stores? Arms dealers? I don't know. Ah, there it is. 'Pyrite's Store of Arms and Armor: Nothing Here is Fake.' That's good to know. Come on."

They entered the store, a dim and musty hovel with the walls and shelves covered with swords, shields, spears, suits of armor, axes, daggers, bows, and one grinning marionette.

"Come in, come in," the storekeeper said. He was a lean man with a mustache. "See anything you like? Nothing here is fake, I guarantee it."

"I'd like to buy a sword for my familiar here," Louise said.

"A human familiar? Is that legal?" The man laughed. "Pyrite doesn't want to know. Pyrite doesn't care. But yes, swords, we have those. Let me get a good look at you, my boy. Hmm, hmm, yes, you strike me more as a longsword than a claymore type, am I right? Yes, of course I'm right. Try this one, tell me how it feels."

He handed Soujiro a sword that shimmered like silver with a gemstone in the crosspiece and a golden dragon carved into the hilt. He wasn't sure what the dragon or the gem were for, but as he held it, he waited for the sword to click, to harmonize with him...but nothing happened.

"It looks nice," Louise said. "But do you have it a size larger?"

"Of course, of course. Bigger is, as they say, better."

As the storekeeper scurried into a back room, Soujiro decided that he couldn't agree with the man. Larger swords carried more force with each strike, but they were also slower and wore out the swordsman more quickly. It was like buying a pair of shoes. He didn't want the biggest one in the room; he wanted one that _fit._

The storekeeper returned with a glamourous monstrosity. "How about this one, forged by the famed Germanian Alchemist Lord Shupei. Do you see these runes? They're enchantments so it never loses it's edge, never rusts, and can cut through anything."

"It looks impressive," Louise admitted.

"It's not just looks, m'lady, it's quality. Quality, I might add, that doesn't come cheap."

Louise held her head up high. "I am a member of the noble house La Valliêre. Money is not an issue."

"Good, good," he said, stroking his mustache. "Then that will be three thousand écus."

Soujiro didn't know how much an écu was, but judging by how Louise's face paled, it seemed to be quite a bit.

"Oh," she said. "That's quite the, um, investment."

"One that, if your familiar has any skill with the sword, is certain to pay off."

She frowned thoughtfully before turning to Soujiro. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," he said. "Sure, it looks nice, but I was kind of hoping for a _real_ sword."

"All these swords are real," the man said, frowning. "Didn't you read the sign?"

Soujiro couldn't read the writing in this world, but he trusted that Louise had read it. And most of his experience with swords was taking Mr. Shishio's word on things, but he was pretty sure that Mr Shishio wouldn't be that impressed with Lord Shupei's craftsmanship. "It's covered in gold," he said. "Gold is soft and heavy."

"It's also holds enchantments better than base metals." The man shook his head and smiled at Louise. "You can't expect a commoner to understand such things."

"No, I suppose not," Louise said. "Enchanted weapons would surely be superior to common weapons. But you said that this Lord Shupei is Germanian? I don't mean to overgeneralize, and I'm sure there's an exception somewhere, but I have never known a trustworthy Germanian. Do you have anything Tristanian wrought?"

The man's smile flickered, but only for a moment. "A patriot through and through, I see. Yes, Lord Shupei is the only foreign craftsman I accept. Everything else here is as Tristanian as the royal palace."

She nodded. "Good. Soujiro, why don't you pick out a sword that suits you?" She hesitated a moment before adding, "But if you choose something I don't like, I won't pay for it."

He smiled. "Thanks, Miss Louise." He went down the aisle, pulling out swords. He had been using them since he was seven but he had never had the chance to pick one out himself. He avoided the more decorative ones. Plain swords had an elegance that couldn't be matched by diamonds or rubies, and Mr. Shishio had a few brief, disparaging statements about what he called "dead weight." There wasn't enough room to swing any of them, but he could test the weight and balance. Most of them, by those two factors alone, were disappointing.

" _Swords are like people,"_ Mr. Shishio had once said. He had been standing over a body and a sword, both of which had been cut in two. " _Ninety percent of them are worthless."_

"That's a nice bit of jewelry you got there," said a voice from behind him. "I bet down the street you can find a pretty dress to go with it."

He turned around and found...no one.

"Down here, kid," a sword said.

"Wow! A talking sword!"

"That's Derf," the storekeeper groaned. "It's a conversation piece. In that he never gives anyone peace from his conversation."

Soujiro lifted the sword from the rack and pulled it from its sheath. It was old and dull and rusted and...and perfect. The design was practical, the balance, ideal. It was like when he first held a sword ten years ago, and just by having it in his hands, he felt wonderfully, horribly, terrifyingly _strong_ , strong enough to kill, strong enough to live.

And, if Mr. Himura was right, strong enough to protect.

"I like this one," he said. "Can we get it, Miss Louise?"

She frowned. "That one? That's an awfully ugly sword."

"You're right," he said. "It might be the ugliest sword in the whole store."

"Wow, thanks," the sword said. "What a couple of charmers you two are."

"But I'd rather have an ugly sword than a pretty toy."

Louise looked at the sword disdainfully. "Still, an attractive sword would be best, particularly if it can't talk."

"You know," Soujiro said slowly. "Magic is really cool."

Louise blinked. "Um, yes?"

"You can do all sorts of stuff with it. You can summon familiars, you can turn lead into gold, you can fly. Swords aren't like that. A sword is a weapon, and nothing else." He looked down at the sword's rusted, brown-orange blade. With most swords, he could see his reflection in the metal, but not with this one. For some reason, he liked it better that way. "The art of swordsmanship is learning how to kill, and the natural state of both sword and swordsman is covered in blood. A sword that pretends to be beautiful through all that is just a lie."

Louise stepped back in surprise. "You, uh, you take your swords seriously."

He smiled at her. "Of course. I am a swordsman."

She cleared her throat. "Well, appearances aside, you can't convince me that a dull, rusty sword is better than a sharp one."

Soujiro ran a finger down the sword's edge. It wasn't as dull as Mr. Himura's reverse-blade sword, but neither was it as sharp as the last one he held. It was something in between. "You're right. This sword has seen better days."

"Better?" the sword repeated. "Ha! I've never seen any worse days, that's the problem."

"You'll have a worse day when someone finally decides to melt you," the storekeeper muttered.

Soujiro turned to him. "Do you have a training post or something I could try him out on? I wouldn't want my sword to fall apart during my first fight with him."

"Uh, sure. There's an old tree out back. Usually I have a 'You break it, you buy it,' policy, but since Derf's involved, go knock yourself out."

"Thanks."

Outside, the tree wasn't very big. Maybe half a foot at most. There were a few shallow cuts in the bark were others might have tested out their purchases before, but Soujiro got the impression that most of the store's swords were for decoration instead of funtion. Mr. Shishio sometimes had him practice techniques on trees like this, but there was hardly any point. He knew how to use a sword the moment he first held one. No, _before_ he first held one. That's what had terrified him in the beginning.

Afterwards...afterwards nothing terrified him.

"Have you ever heard of _battojutsu_?" he asked the sword.

"Nope. Is that a band?"

"No, it's a sword drawing technique. See, if you can kill someone in four moves, you can beat someone who can kill you in five." He sheathed the sword. " _Battojutsu_ is designed to kill your opponent in one."

He let out a breath, fell into stance, and drew the sword. The ground collapsed beneath his feet as it always did when he used the _shukuchi,_ and he sliced through the tree like...well, not quite like butter. "You're right, Miss Louise," he said, looking at the sword. "It is a bit dull. Do you think we could get a whetstone to go with it?"

WWW

Louise didn't know how much a sword should cost, but compared to the Germanian monstrosity the man had tried to sell her, two hundred écus seemed quite reasonable. The sword did most of the haggling, and Soujiro joked about how the swords there were so good, they tried to sell themselves.

He also made a joke about how if he killed the storekeeper, they wouldn't have to pay for anything. The sword thought that was funny, but the storekeeper must have thought he was serious and dropped the price from a thousand.

She still felt a bit of trepidation at arming her familiar. She remembered his cold cheerfulness from a few days before when he was strangling Guiche, and she wondered what he could do with a sword. Well, a nearby tree stump gave her a few ideas, but the fact remained that a familiar with a sword, even a dull and rusty one, looked more impressive than one without.

"So your name's Derf?" Soujiro said as they walked down the street to where they had stalled their horses.

"Derflinger!" the sword said. "Derflinger the Legendary Sword of Legend! Did I mention I'm legendary?"

"Once or twice. What's the legend about?"

"Funny thing, that. I don't really know. I was a long time ago, but let me tell you, it was _epic._ "

"Well, if you remember it, let me know."

"Sure thing, Partner. What did you say your name was?"

"Soujiro. They used to call me Soujiro the Tenken back home. It means, 'Heavenly Sword.'"

Louise looked up at that, but didn't say anything.

"Huh. Heavenly Sword? You look more like a swordsman than a sword, but I should probably get out more. Where'd the heaven part come from?"

"It was a title my master gave to me. Not Miss Louise, my last one. I think it was mostly marketing, though. See, he was beyond good and evil, and he wanted me to balance out his image. Or contrast it. I guess I probably should have asked him about that."

 _Heavenly Sword?_ Louise frowned. She had failed her first three attempts at summoning a familiar, so for her fourth time, she improvised a little. She asked specifically for a familiar that was "divine, beautiful, and powerful," and had taken it as a cosmic joke when a commoner popped out. But he was called holy before she summoned him? Sure, it was just a nickname, but still...and then there was that tree.

In his duel with Guiche, he had been fast, so fast he couldn't even be seen, but what he did with that rusty sword was something else entirely. The cut was so smooth, if she didn't see it with her own eyes she would have assumed it had been cut with magic or a saw.

 _Divine, powerful..._ she looked at her familiar, really looked at him for the first time as he walked beside her with a bright smile on his face, chatting with his sword like a new friend, and she thought to herself, _Well, two out of three's not bad._

WWW

Derflinger was old. He had been in more battles than he could remember, which sort of defeated the purpose of combat experience. Some of his partners treated him well, but most figured that magic was the real power, and everything else was just for show. And as he went through more and more partners like that, he got less and less showy.

The Tenken was different, though, and not just in being a swordsman with a runic name. Derflinger was looking forward to having a partner again and sharing with him his years of experience, then the Tenken showed him something new right after picking him up. That was really not fair at all.

And then Tenken was a familiar? That was vital. Derflinger felt some echo of a forgotten memory and _knew_ that a familiar as a partner was important. If only he could remember why.

WWW

A/n I was actually planning for this chapter to be longer, like, three times as long, but Soujiro getting a sword was a nice, independent plot arc, and the next bit is nice by itself too, so I cut it in two. I also considered following up the obligatory Guiche curb stomping scene with the obligatory Kirche fanservice scene, but I decided against it on account of that scene being stupid, and also a fairly demeaning way of introducing a major character.

I changed Derflinger's sword design to be more katana like. I always assumed that it was supposed to be a katana in the anime, but the light novel made it clear that katanas are slightly smaller. When I look at Derflinger and then look at the swords they use in Rurouni Kenshin, that seems more like an informed attribute than anything else, so it's probably not going to change much of the story.

On a personal rant, I noticed that most of the stories that I've read that follow Soujiro after he becomes a wanderer refer to him as the _former_ Tenken. I get that he's starting a new life and leaving his past behind and moving on and blah blah blah, but that's an awesome name! When you understand what it means and how he got it, it's a really awesome name! Why would you abandon that? If anything, he should take it more seriously and live up to his title.

Anyway...

Thank you everyone who left reviews, and expect the next chapter...whenever I get around to it.


	4. Chapter 4

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Four

"If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word." _  
_— **Discworld** , _Men at Arms_

"Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely, Headmaster."

"But it's..."

"Impossible, I know. But look at the runes I copied down from the boy's hand, and _look_ at the picture in the records!"

"Troubling, troubling. Do you know if anyone else has recognized this? Have you told anyone?"

"No, Headmaster. I came to you as soon as I discovered this, and the boy wears a guard on the back of his hands, covering up the rune. I doubt many others have even seen it, and besides, sir, he's a commoner. To most of the nobility, he's invisible."

"Thank the Founder for little mercies, then. I can't imagine what sort of disaster it would be if people found out that Gand–" The door opened. "–der across the lake when I saw her, as beautiful as the Water Spirit herself, I kid you not. But that's a story for another time, Mr. Colbert. We have a guest!" Osmond stood up in greeting. "Welcome, Count Mott. What can the academy do for you on this fine day?"

Mott was one of the people whom Osmond liked the least. It wasn't personal; Osmond never bothered to get to know the man personally, but he was one of the few people the Headmaster of the Academy was forced to defer to, and the Count lacked any quality that he could respect.

Osmond pretended to like the man, of course. He only acted senile when it suited him.

"Oh, palace business. It always is."

Mott took a seat in the office without being asked. It was the chair where Colbert had been sitting in before he stood up to make a point. The bald professor looked around as if wondering if he would have to hover awkwardly around the headmaster's desk until Mott left. Probably.

"And we all must do our part to keep the world turning," Osmond replied. "What is the matter at hand?"

"It's nothing drastic," Mott said, looking around the room. He had an appraising eye, measuring everything he saw as though he were preparing to buy it or sell it, regardless of whether or not it was his or for sale. "As you recall, Princess Henrietta made arrangements to attend the Familiar Exhibition, but unfortunately she has had to cancel."

"Tragic," Osmond said. "We'll be devastated. We're devastated, aren't we, Colbert?"

"Um, absolutely, sir."

Osmond sighed inwardly. Colbert may have been an excellent scholar, but he really needed to work on his false sincerity. "The Princess hasn't taken ill, has she?"

"No, nothing of that nature," Mott said. "But with the nonsense surrounding the thief, Fouquet, she thought it best to not spread her guards too thin."

Interesting. If Mott said that Fouquet was the problem, then Osmond could be sure that the truth was anything but. If Fouquet was even part of the issue, then Mott would have said something else, and since he always diminished the problem, then Osmond could be sure that whatever was holding Her Majesty's attention was far, far worse.

"Fouquet, you say?" Osmond said, sounding credulous. "What are they calling that thief? Fouquet the Clod or something?"

"Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt is more common," Mott said.

"I've heard Sandy Fouquet, myself," Colbert added.

"Well, either way it's a lousy runic name," Osmond said. "No wonder he became a public menace." He lit his pipe for a smoke. "Of course, you didn't need to take the time out of your busy schedule just to deliver this message." While Mott's official role was the palace's messenger, he usually carried orders and delegated notices to others.

Mott leaned back in his chair. "Yes, well, I figured that the absence of the Princess needed a more personal touch. Besides, I was feeling nostalgic for my old Academy days."

Osmond forced a smile. "I imagine that's why you requested this position." He remembered Mott when he was just a student. He had been a line class mage back then, slightly above average but not extraordinary. Not in that regard, at least. Mott had, however, almost single handedly caused a worker's strike amongst the maids. Osmond had laughed at the time, attributing Mott's behavior to the adolescent foolishness of youth knowing that he would later grow out of it.

He hadn't known what Mott's relatively innocent mischief would grow into, but he knew it wouldn't last.

"By the way," Mott said. "I noticed that your pretty secretary wasn't there when I came in. Is she out on an errand?"

"Um, no," Osmond said. "She handed in her resignation just recently, so I'm still between secretaries at the moment." _But not in the good way._ His secretaries never stayed for long, but he rather liked the variety.

"Pity. I liked that one. Why'd she quit?"

"...complications."

Mott smirked. "Did those complications involve her yelling 'sexual harassment' and slapping you?"

"They involved a lot of things." None of which needed to be repeated. The last thing Osmond needed from the man was _fraternity._

Mott gave a commiserating sigh with a wry smile. "What is wrong with women that they can never accept a sincere compliment?"

And...there it was. _Founder_ the man was tedious. "Indeed. Now, was there anything else you needed?"

Mott sat up straighter and glanced over his shoulder and the door. "Yes. Yes there is."

WWW

Soujiro sat outside the main tower, tending to his sword. When he had told Louise what polishing the sword would entail, she had thrown him out of her room and told him not to come back until he had finished.

Besides, it wasn't like she needed him for anything. She just kept him around for...he wasn't sure why. Something to do with mages and familiars that he didn't understand. Of course, if he had understood everything, he wouldn't have needed to become a rurouni.

Still, it was too nice a day to spend inside. The sky was clear, the breeze was pleasant, and the perfectly manicured grass was soft and green.

Mr. Shishio hadn't stressed sword maintenance that much; he figured that a sword that couldn't keep up wasn't worth keeping around.

" _Swords are like people."_

But he had taught him the basics. The only excuse for negligence was laziness, and laziness got you killed. After oiling the blade, he ran the whetstone down the edge, scraping off bits of rust. There was a shine down there, somewhere. And like Mr. Shishio always said, appearances didn't matter. It was what was inside that counted.

"Hey, Mr. Derflinger," he said. "Can you feel this?"

"Sure, Partner. It feels nice."

"It doesn't hurt? I feel like I'm skinning you or something."

"Nah, it's like getting your back scratched. I think. I've never had my back scratched before. Or a back at all. But I'm sure it's the same."

"Well, if you say so."

"So, what about you? How long have you been a familiar?"

"About a week."

"And that pink-haired mage, what's she like?"

"Louise? She's kind of silly. She's nothing at all like my last master."

"You've been a familiar before?"

Soujiro shook his head. "No, I just worked for him. Mr. Shishio. He taught me how to use a sword, and I was his right hand man until a few weeks ago when I quit. He was great, but after ten years with him, I needed a change." He looked up at the sky. It didn't look any different from Japan during the daytime, but when night fell, two moons would rise. "And I got one."

In the distance, the maid Siesta caught his eye, and he smiled at her. He didn't know her too well, but she was always willing to answer any questions he had about Tristan's customs. She hadn't asked for anything in return yet, but she was probably just saving up favors.

"Hello, Soujiro," she said. "What are you up to?"

"Just polishing my sword." He held up Derflinger. "I got him today."

"Oh, wow, it looks, um, vintage."

"He's not just vintage. He's legendary."

"Really?" she asked. "What legend is it from?"

"I hate both of you," Derflinger said.

Siesta jumped. "It can talk!"

Soujiro grinned. "Neat, right? Where I'm from, none of the swords can talk."

"Imagine if you had had that for your duel."

Soujiro laughed. "Are people still talking about that?"

"Of course!" Siesta said. "You fought a mage to a draw with your bare hands!"

"Nice," Derflinger said.

"She's making it sound more impressive than it really was," Soujiro explained to the sword. "Guiche's heart wasn't in it. Neither of ours was."

"From what I heard, he was livid until he realized he was losing and needed to find a way to save face," Siesta said. "I wish I had stayed and watched."

"Why didn't you?"

She shrugged helplessly. "I was worried that the noble was going to beat you up and I didn't want to see that." She seemed earnest about something.

"But instead no one got beat up, which was the one thing that _wasn't_ supposed to happen," he mused. Sure, Guiche left with a bloody nose, but no one lost. Soujiro seemed to get draws with the weirdest people.

"I think everyone expected him to win. Nobles are so strong, you're the only person I've met who has ever stood up to one."

 _If you're, strong you live._

He smiled at her. "Well, I tried to back down from him as best I could, but that guy was _stubborn_."

She smiled back, but not in a happy way. "Oh, Soujiro, you really have no idea how amazing you are, do you?"

"Um, what?"

"I mean..." She shook her head. "It's nothing. I heard that you were summoned here as some mage's familiar."

He didn't quite understand the difference between a familiar servant and a regular one, so he had never brought it up. "Yep."

"They can do that?" She sounded more worried than surprised.

He shrugged. "Apparently."

Siesta looked away. "I guess we really are just animals to them."

Soujiro had never been very good at reading people's emotions, especially not compared to someone like Mr. Himura. He could barely read his own, though that was more form practice than from anything else. Still, something in her tone seemed off. "So? We are animals. What's wrong with that?" Mr. Shishio had always referred to people as a magnificent animal, the most cunning of beasts. Listening to him talk, he sounded like humanity's greatest admirer.

Siesta blinked, took a step back, furrowed her brow, and turned around. Soujiro could mark the facial expressions, but he couldn't translate them. "I have to go," she said as she walked away. "I'm sorry I never got the chance to know you better."

"Smooth," Derflinger said after she left. "Seriously partner, that was really well done."

"Did you get the impression that something was bothering her?"

"No, really? What gave you that idea?"

"Just a guess."

"I think she likes you."

With her gone, he continued scraping rust off of Derflinger's blade. "That's ridiculous, Mr. Derflinger. She doesn't even know me."

"Yeah, and I think she just figured that out."

WWW

Soujiro wouldn't have paid that encounter another thought if Siesta hadn't disappeared afterwards, and the simple nature of the chores that Louise assigned to him did nothing to distract his mind.

The next day at dinner, Louise didn't feel in the mood for seafood, so she sent Soujiro into the kitchens to fetch her something else. As soon as he opened the door, the uniformed cooks broke out in applause.

"Soujiro!" the head chef Marteau said. "Good to see you, my boy. What can I do for you?" He was a middle aged man with a trimmed beard and the most outstanding set of eyebrows Soujiro had seen on anyone.

"My master wants a different plate, Mr. Marteau."

The chef shook his head and sighed. "There's just no pleasing those people, is there? Never mind that those scallops were seared in champagne-butter and crusted with hazelnuts, there's always something wrong with it. So what was it this time? Was there too much salt? Too tender?"

"She didn't say," Soujiro replied. "She just said that she wanted something besides seafood."

"Escargot, maybe?" Marteau mused. "No, those snails might have touched water at some point in their lives, and they have shells too. I know, how about Margret á la D'artagnan. Do you think she'll accept that?"

"That sounds fancy enough. In fact, that name could pass as a noble house." The nobility had names so long they seemed to go on forever.

"It was," Marteau said. "But Margret la D'artagnan was such a picky eater, I snapped and decided to cut her up and feed her to her peers." He laughed. "I'm joking. That sounded a lot funnier in my head. But no, it's red wine, armagnac, and black truffle butter over seared duck breasts."

"That sounds delicious." He didn't understand half those words, but the chef sounded like he knew what he was doing.

"Of course; it's all delicious. Finding the _right_ delicious is the hard part. Just sit tight for a moment, and I'll whip it up for you."

Marteau set to work with saucepans and butcher knives and Soujiro leaned against the wall to stay out of the way. He could have sat down, but he felt more comfortable on his feet.

"People seem to like you here," Derflinger noted.

Soujiro nodded. "It has been like this since my duel with Guiche."

"Of course," Derflinger said. "You beat him up so they didn't half to; that's like the textbook definition of hero right there. And now that you're with me, partner, your next one won't end in a draw."

"A draw? Is that what he said?" Marteau laughed, looking up from his armagnac. He didn't seem too surprised with a talking sword. "Sure, the mage tried to spin it that way, but by the end of the fight, he had a bloody nose and Soujiro here didn't have a scratch. And that was _without_ a sword. Imagine what would have happened if you had that with you!"

Siesta had said practically the same thing. It seemed like a lot of people liked the idea of nobles getting dismembered...but that's not what would have happened at all, he realized. He would have held the blade against Guiche's throat and made him surrender from the start. No one would even have gotten hurt. _If you're strong, you live. If you're weak, you die. But if you're even stronger, no one gets hurt at all?_

Interesting.

"By the way, have you seen Siesta recently?" Soujiro asked. "She seemed bothered about something the last time I saw her."

Marteau stopped mixing the sauce. "You haven't heard? Ugh. She got just got transferred. Count Mott came by yesterday and bought her contract."

"Oh," he said with a smile. "Okay."

"He, um, asked for her by name," Marteau said.

"Oh," Derflinger said. "Crap."

Marteau looked at Soujrio carefully. "You do know what that means, don't you?"

"She's a good maid and her reputation preceded her?" he guessed. "That's a good thing, right?"

"Uh, no," Marteau said, finishing up the Margret á la D'artagnan. "See, um, oh Founder, this is difficult."

"I'll explain it to him," Derflinger said.

Marteau's face brightened. "Would you? Thanks, Mr. Sword." He handed Soujiro the dish and he and Derflinger left the kitchen.

"So," Soujiro said. "You were explaining..."

"Right," Derflinger said. "It's a noble thing. Noble's do it a lot, like, all the time."

"Noble's like Louise?"

"Well, no. At least I don't think so, but...actually, why don't you ask her?"

"Are you saying that because you don't know or you don't want to explain it?"

"I want to see how she explains it."

WWW

Louise blinked in surprise that evening and tried to think of something to say. Her familiar, she decided, was as innocent as he was hopelessly naive. "Um, I take it you don't have much experience with nobility."

He shook his head. "You're the first one I've ever talked to."

It was late and she was getting ready for bed. She knew that, as his master, it was her responsibility to educate him on such matters, but she did _not_ want to have this conversation right now. Or ever.

Well, at least she was able to give her class a good first impression. "Well, usually nobles leave the hiring and firing of servants to the butlers and stewards and other high ranking members of the household staff. When someone, like this Count Mott, for instance, takes a personal interest in a maid, it's because he has taken a, um, a _personal_ interest in a maid. Understand?"

He shook his head. Well, he'd have to learn that not all nobles were like the Valliére's sometime. Her family, at least, had standards. And if her father tried something like what Count Mott did, her mother would kill him. But mostly, it was because her family had standards.

"That means that some nobles–not all, but some of the lesser, more vulgar breed–pick out young maids as...mistresses."

There, she said it. _Now please don't ask me to explain what a mistress is._

He nodded. "Okay. But if he wants a mistress, why doesn't he just hire a prostitute?"

Louise nearly coughed. Out of all the things she expected him to say, that was not one of them, and certainly not so casually.

"Oh, never mind," he said. "I get it now."

She knew that she should have ended the conversation then, but she didn't. "Get what?"

"I assumed that it was about sex, but that wouldn't make sense."

"Um, doesn't it?" she asked, dazed by his bluntness.

"No. See, if a man hires a prostitute, then that says that he has money. But if he takes a weak girl and forces her into a position where she can't get away, then that shows that he has power."

Well, so much for innocent naivety. And the worse part was that he was smiling the whole way through like he had discovered the great secret of human nature while talking about a friend getting...getting...well, there really was no polite term for that.

And it wasn't like that at all, not really. Mistresses, she assumed, got paid more than maids, and they weren't mistreated, except when they were...horribly abused.

 _Founder_ she was going to be sick. It was a good thing she skipped out on the seafood.

No, she decided. She was _not_ going to justify vulgarity just because it came from a noble. If anything, nobles ought to hold themselves to higher standards, not lower ones. Her family took _noblesse oblige_ very seriously.

"It's kind of like how you have me help you get dressed in the morning," he continued. "You could just do it yourself, but by having someone else help you, it shows that you have power."

"Wait, what?" she stammered, snapping out of her thoughts. "We are nothing alike! I am nothing like that pig!"

"Of course," he said cheerfully. "After all, helping you out doesn't hurt me at all."

"I...I...yes! I mean, no! That's not why. It's...it's complicated, okay? You wouldn't understand." Thoughts rolled through her head like "status," and "appearances," but not in a pattern coherent enough to form an argument.

She climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her head. When Soujiro told her that he was going out for a walk, she dismissed him without a thought.

 _We're nothing alike,_ she thought to herself, trying to fall asleep. _Stupid familiar._

WWW

Mott was a man of great self importance, but not substance. He was in his thirties with a thin mustache, neat hair, and a frilly, white thing around his neck. Soujiro assumed he was rich, if only because his clothes looked ridiculous.

Mott didn't seem that impressed with him either.

"So let me get this straight," Mott said. "You want me to transfer the maid I just aquired from the Academy back to said Academy, immediately, in exchange for what again?"

Mott had agreed to speak with him when he heard that Soujiro had come from the academy. When he found out that Soujiro had not been sent _by_ the academy, he grew less interested.

"Goodwill," he said with a smile. "You never know when you might need it."

Mott's eyes narrowed and he glanced down at Derflinger at Soujiro's side. "Is that a threat, peasant?"

Soujiro laughed. "Please, I'm the last person you should be afraid of."

Mott's manor was about half an hour light jog from the Academy. Guiche had told him how to get there and had been too absorbed with his conversation with a pretty girl to ask any questions.

Mott stood up from his chair. Soujiro tried not to sneeze as a wave of perfume emanated from him. "Girls like her are wasted mopping floors and washing dishes. The peasantry, as I'm sure you must have learned, exist only to serve their betters. The way she might serve me would be a greater honor for her than _anything_ she might achieve elsewhere."

Honor. Mr. Shishio had never taught him anything about honor, but from what he had heard it had something to do with suicide, at least in Japan. In Tristan, it seemed to mean something else.

"Well, I'm sure it's a great honor for a cow to end up on your plate, but it still would rather avoid the slaughterhouse."

Mott gave him a look of pure contempt, one that he must have spent hours in front of a mirror practicing. "I have wasted enough of my time talking with you. Guards, throw him out."

A pair of men with matching breastplates and spears grabbed him by each arm and bodily threw him out of the manor. Soujiro stood up, smiled at them, bid them a good night, and walked away.

"Well, that went well," Derflinger said.

Soujiro laughed. "I'll admit, talking my way out of trouble was never my strong suit. I had a friend named Saizuchi back before I was summoned, and he was great at talking to people. He could talk his way into anything, out of anything, he even talked a giant into doing his bidding. But me? I've always just focused on swordsmanship."

"Too bad nobles aren't impressed by that sort of thing," Derflinger said.

Soujiro smiled. He was out of sight of anyone at Mott's manor. It was important that he be seen leaving, and unless he had gotten horribly rusty in the past few weeks, no one was going to see him return.

"I think he will be," he said with a smile. "Tell me, Mr. Derflinger, have you ever heard of a sword that protects the weak?"

WWW

The _shukuchi_ was too loud to be used without drawing notice, but even without his top speed, it was pathetically easy to sneak back into Mott's estate. The grounds were vast and undermanned, and the guards that were there were only for appearances. One day Soujiro would understand why nobles placed such importance on appearances, but one day he'd understand everything if he lived long enough.

Except for why Mott sang to himself. Mott was going to carry that secret to his grave. As Soujiro was snooping around the grounds, he heard Mott's voice from his bedroom, as clear as a dying cat.

Soujiro ran up the wall and climbed up the balcony on the second floor.

Mott spun around at the sound. "You! What are you doing back here?" Soujiro wasn't very good with facial expressions, but judging by how wide his eyes were, he's have to guess that Mott was surprised and at least a little scared.

"You know, I've never understood that expression, 'I'm the last person you need to be afraid of,'" Soujiro admitted. "It sounds like it means, after you're afraid of me, you'll never need to be afraid of anything else."

Mott reached for his wand, but Soujiro was faster. He was always faster.

WWW

Soujiro took in a deep breath of the crisp night air on the road back to the Academy. "I've been wanting to do that for ages."

"What, kill Mott?" Derflinger asked. "You just met him."

He let out a laugh. "No, not that! Use a sword to protect the weak. I've never done that before, and when someone first told me about it, I thought he was crazy. It was like a fairy tale, some comforting lie you tell yourself to convince yourself that everything's going to be alright. But it's not! Tonight, Mr. Derflinger, we _were_ that sword, and it was amazing!"

"If you say so, Partner."

"See, Siesta is really weak, but we're not, so we can protect her." _If you're weak, you die, DENIED!_ "And Louise is pretty weak, too. Sure, she's a mage, but all of her spells blow up in her face. And that means that we can protect her too."

Soujiro's grin faded as he remembered the look of horror on Mott's face as blood poured out of him. Yes, Soujiro recognized that expression. He'd seen a lifetime's worth of it.

"Mott was pretty weak, too," he said softly. "If he were strong, he would have lived and _I_ would have died. I guess Mr. Shishio was right after all. Again."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Derflinger asked. "I mean, I just met you, Partner. If you died, I'd spend another few boring decades in some store again."

Soujiro smiled, but the smile felt more tired and forced than usual. "Don't worry, Mr. Derflinger. I'm not planning on dying any time soon. I bet that'd hurt. Besides, I still have a lot to figure out."

"Like what?"

"For starters, did we do the right thing? Mott might not have been a good person, but neither am I. If anything, I'm worse."

"Are you sure you're not just being hard on yourself?"

"I've been killing people since I was seven."

"Yikes. Bad people?"

"Weak people."

"Ah."

"But I'm sure some of them were bad. Statistically, some of them had to be. But is that all morality is? A turf war? Good people kill bad people, and bad people kill good people? Then they could pick up each other's flags and no one could tell them apart.

Soujiro looked up at the night sky. The two moons were the biggest difference, but some of the stars looked different too. "You know, I used to try to understand the world in terms of good and evil, but it never made sense that way. My relatives all said that my mother was a bad woman, but from what little I can remember, she seemed nice. Even by his own determination, Mr. Shishio was evil, but I'd be dead if it weren't for him. I've known murderers who became pacifists, pacifists who became murderers, bad people who saved lives, good people who burned down orphanages."

He shook his head. "If there is a way to make sense of the world," a condition that was far from certain, "then good and evil aren't the only factors, if they're factors at all."

"Well, think about it like this, Partner. What would have happened if you stayed at home instead?"

"Siesta would have become Mott's mistress," Soujiro said. "She would have hated it at first, but she would have learned to live with it eventually. People can learn to live with anything except dying. And she'd be alive, and Mott would be alive. Now she will, I don't know, get transferred back to the Academy, maybe? And Mott is dead." He died easily. Everyone did.

Derflinger sighed. "So there's a right reason to kill someone, but you're not sure if you met that reason."

"Is there?" Soujiro asked. "A right reason to kill someone?" Mr. Himura would have said no. Mr. Shishio would have denied a reason was necessary. That was something that Soujiro had liked about his philosophy. Everyone who lived was supposed to live, and everyone who died was supposed to die. Everything was as it should be.

"There had better be," Derflinger said with a wry laugh. "I'm a sword. If there's no right reason to kill, then I'm in trouble."

"But if there's a right reason to kill, that's like saying that there's a fate worse than death, and I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than die."

"You've never found anything you'd be willing to die for?"

He had met people who had. Soujiro had laughed at them. "No."

"Well, stick with me, then. You will. All my favorite partners have, and you're no different."

Soujiro kept walking down the road and thought to himself, _What would Mr. Shishio have done?_ Nothing. He would have let Siesta save herself, just like he let Soujiro save himself ten years ago. If she lived, then she earned her life, and if she died, then she didn't. Mr. Himura used his sword to protect the weak, so he would have protected her, but he wouldn't have killed Mott. He would have made a deal with him if he could, or beat him senseless with his reverse-blade sword if he couldn't.

 _What I did, neither of them would have done._ He wasn't following Mr. Shishio any more, and even when he experimented Mr. Himura's philosophy, he didn't follow the Battousai's methods. A slow smile spread across his face, a real one this time.

"What are you grinning at?" Derflinger asked.

"I'm making my own path," he said. "I still don't know where I'm going, but _this_ , Mr. Derflinger? This is what I've been trying to do all along."

WWW

A/n Thank you to everyone who has been staying with me. The next chapter has _canon divergence._ Yep, you heard me. Things are going to get weird. For the next two chapters. Then they'll go back to normal. Probably. I really haven't written that much further.

And again, thank you to everyone who reviewed, especially those who review consistently. Usually if I find a story that I like, I'll leave one review for the entire story, and if the author updates, then I'll assume that he can reread my first review instead of bothering to write another one. Because I'm a jerk. So I'd like to give a special thank you to those magnificent people who have left reviews for multiple chapters. I don't know you, but you're a better man than I am. Even if you're a woman.


	5. Chapter 5

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Five

"So, Mr. Shishio is dead after all. And Miss Yumi too, I guess. Well, I suppose I'll be going now."  
-Rurouni Kenshin

Siesta stood at the door to Count Mott's bedchamber and hesitated. That was the closest that she had ever come to disobedience.

" _A noble's time is precious!"_ she had been taught. " _A noble should never be kept waiting. When a noble gives you an order, stop whatever it is you're doing and run!_

" _If you don't, bad things will happen."_

She wanted to run, alright. Run the _other_ way, all through the night until morning, and then _keep on running._ They'd punish her if they caught her, but at what point did the chastisement for disobedience become preferable to the cost of compliance? At what point did she literally have _nothing left to lose?_

Just a little bit more. There always was. Count Mott could track down her family in Tarbes and demand restitution for her rebellion and as a contract breaker, she'd never be able to find work for another noble, and _that_ was if she could even make it off the estate.

But the truth was, Siesta had spent so much of her life obeying the nobility, she didn't know how to do anything else.

She considered knocking, but that would have been foolish. What was she supposed to say? "I'm here to have my dreams crushed, I hope I'm not interrupting"?

No. Her hand trembled as she grabbed the doorknob and opened it.

As a little girl, she fantasized that a knight in shining armor would come out of nowhere to sweep her off her feet. But that was the problem with waiting for a white knight; they were too busy saving princesses, and she was...what was she? A virgin sacrifice? No. That was to theatric. She wasn't even a victim.

She was a statistic.

When she stepped into the room, she had time to offer one last prayer before she saw Count Mott. _Please don't let him be naked._

She found him lying on the floor. In a pool of blood. With his head several feet from his body.

She screamed and ran and called for help, but through all the horror, the thought struck her that Brimir worked in mysterious ways. Her prayer had been answered, because Count Mott's decapitated, bloodstained body was fully and immaculately dressed.

WWW

Siesta didn't return until several days after Mott died. The presiding constable detained her for a few days for questioning, but later released her. She may have discovered the body, but she couldn't tell the constable anything that he couldn't figure out himself, and as a potential suspect, well, Siesta didn't seem that menacing.

No, whoever killed Mott was clearly a noble. The only way to enter the room unseen would have been through the window, which would require the use of Levitation, a dot class wind spell, which narrowed the suspects down to...the entire aristocracy.

Meanwhile, a distant cousin of Mott's inherited the estate. He was a good, decent young man, but he (and his wife) could not understand why a single estate needed a small army of maids, so he set about laying off the surplus staff. The new lord of the manor left much of the domestic management to his bride, and if his wife kept only the plainest, more elderly servants, that was surely a coincidence.

And so, unemployed, Siesta made her way back to the Academy to ask for her old job back, and everything went back to normal.

For Soujiro's part, he always thought that the best kill wasn't one where you didn't get caught, but one where you weren't even a suspect. He knew some people back in Japan who would seek out the strongest swordsmen they knew and kill them for the reputation, but Soujiro never needed the accolades or the infamy.

Besides, Mott had been a self important aristocrat, not a swordsman. No one would have been impressed.

Still, every time he passed by Siesta in the Academy, he wanted to talk to her about it, he wanted her to say...he didn't know what. Tell him that she was glad that Mott was dead, that he had done the right thing, or if not the right thing, then at least _something_ that mattered.

But every time he brought up the subject Siesta changed it, and he didn't know how to explain why he wanted to talk about Mott's murder without confessing that he had committed it, so eventually he let it go.

In the days that followed, his life too had returned to what he had come to accept as his new routine. He followed Louise around, did minor chores for her, and smiled as she grew frustrated with the most insignificant issues, and things were, for the most part, peaceful.

Until Louise got a letter from the princess.

WWW

Louise rifled through her mail. She had been thinking about teaching her familiar how to do it, but he didn't know how to read, or he only knew how to read a completely foreign language, which was the same thing, and she had enough on her plate without teaching basic literacy.

Most of her mail was advertisements. No, she didn't want a new ball gown–well, she did, but her ancient and noble household was not the sort to throw money at her for things she didn't need. She got a letter from her parents, too. That one she opened. Eleanor had gotten engaged (again) and Cattleya was feeling better (slightly), and at the end, her parents instructed her to fail less. Always helpful.

Louise looked at the final letter and gasped. _Princess Henrietta! Founder!_ She ripped the envelope open with refined and dignified gusto and scanned the familiar handwriting.

 _Hey, Louise!_

 _How've you been? I haven't seen you in, like, forever! We should hang out sometime. I'd come out to visit, but Mazarin has me on a tight leash (Idiomatically, of course. If he tried that literally, I'd have him on a tight noose.), shoving princess duties down my throat like you wouldn't believe, so I would love it if you come over to the palace. I don't know what your schedule's like, and I don't want to interfere with your schooling, so just whenever is good for you works for me._

 _Henrietta_

"Good news?" her familiar said conversationally, washing the windows. The windows were already clean, but it was good for him to have something to do.

"It's a letter from the _princess_!"

"Ooh, I didn't know you knew the princess! What's it say?"

"It says that I am cordially invited to attend her at the royal palace," she said, automatically inserting the proper formalities. "Right now. Let's go!"

"Don't you have school today?"

Louise knew Princess Henrietta well enough to tell when she was crying for help, and that letter might as well have been written in blood. Besides, the only class she had left that day was in the afternoon taught by Professor Kaita. She was convinced that wind mage only became a teacher so he could belittle people less skilled than himself, and if she left now she could make it to the palace before sundown.

"Not anymore."

WWW

As they made their way to the palace, Louise drilled Soujiro on every bit of formal courtesy that she could think of. Mr. Shishio had never stood on ceremony, but Miss Yumi had taught him some basic etiquette. Not all of the rules carried over, but none of it seemed too complicated.

There were a few interchangeable forms of address that he could use with the princess, but most of it was doing what he was told and not drawing attention to himself. Just like he had been practicing his entire life.

They rode horseback to the capital city on a dirt road through the countryside. The land was almost entirely flat with only gentle hills and no mountains on the horizon, so they saw the skyline of the capital at a distance and soon could make out the outline of the palace.

Soujiro had been there once before when they came to buy Derflinger. He had seen the palace in the distance almost before he could see the city itself, but since they hadn't been going there, he never paid it much attention. He had never been good at focusing on what wasn't immediately in front of him. The dreams, the plans, the vision...he had always left that to Mr. Shishio.

They made their way through the city gate where the dirt road turned to cobblestone. The outskirts of the city were filled with slums, unwashed masses living in hovels. Further inward Soujiro saw progressively larger, more secure houses and smelled less pungent people until they reached the immaculate and fragrant palace itself. Louise spoke with the guards and waited to be admitted. They dismounted, a servant saw to their horses, and they followed another servant through the doors until they saw the princess.

Soujiro didn't recognize her, but Louise certainly did. She fell to her knees, and Soujiro followed suit. " _If you ever don't know what to do,"_ she had told him, " _just do what I do."_ It seemed simple enough, except for the part about eating. He hoped that they didn't stay for dinner, or that if they did he'd be able to eat by himself. He was (almost) sure that the forks were the pointy ones, but he was years away from knowing the different between the five kinds.

"Your most gracious majesty," Louise said. "Your humble servant presents herself to your will."

The princess was sitting on a simple chair at a simple table that contrasted with the ornate curtains and statues around the room. She stood up and approached them. "Louise, there's no need to stand on ceremony. Stand up, please."

"Yes, your highness." She stood, and Soujiro followed her lead.

The princess sighed. "You're still doing it. Come now, we're friends aren't we? You _can_ use my name. It's not cursed. At least I hope it isn't."

"As you wish...Henrietta." She forced herself to say the last word, and Soujiro realized that in all her description of the princess during their journey, Louse had never used her real name.

"See? Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Her gaze fell upon Soujiro, and she smiled. "Who's your friend? Aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Yes, your highn...rietta. This is Seta Soujiro, the familiar that I summoned."

"He's your familiar? But he's human." She looked him up and down as if to make sure.

"Apparently," Louise said, looking down.

"I didn't know that you _could_ summon a human as a familiar! That is so neat."

She straightened up. "You're too kind, but really, all he can do is run really fast and smile a lot."

"I could use a few more smiles around here," Henrietta said. "Brimir knows it's been dismal here with my wedding coming up and the assassin on the loose."

 _Assassin?_ Soujiro looked up in surprise, his smile almost dropping.

"Wedding?" Louise said. "You're getting married? Congratulations!" She stopped when she saw Henrietta's expression. "Or, not. To whom?"

"The Emperor of Germania."

Louise gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, Henrietta, I'm so sorry."

Sorry? Soujiro thought that getting married to an emperor was pretty good. Not that he'd want to get married to one, but still, it sounded prestigious.

Henrietta poured two cups of tea and handed one to Louise. The cups were plain while the teapot was ornate.

"Don't be. The Emperor wouldn't be my first choice, but he's still the best bad option. Right now, we are small and isolated, but an alliance with Germania would make us stronger than any other single nation. It won't be long before the Reconquista takes over Albion, and when they do, Tristain needs to be strong enough so they don't attack us next." Henrietta gave a wry laugh. "And if it sounds like I'm quoting someone, that's because I'm repeating practically verbatim what Cardinal Mazarin has told me twice a day since my betrothal."

Louise nodded in understanding. "I take it you are not on good terms with the Prime Minister, then."

Henrietta sighed. "He's a good man and I know he has the best interests of the kingdom at heart, but _Founder,_ talking to him is like arguing with a stone. Also he counts my sighs, which is just annoying."

"He does?" Louise asked. She furrowed her brow. "That _does_ sound tiresome."

"I know, right?" She sipped at her tea. "But I'm sure you didn't want to come all this way just to hear me feel sorry for myself, and between my betrothal and the grisly murders that have been happening..." She waved her hand dismissively. "So how are things at the Academy? Are your studies going well? Are you making new friends?"

Louise shifted in her seat. "Um, yes. Friends, studies." She shrugged and took a sip of her tea. "Good. It's good. Rather dull, really. You mentioned grisly murders? That sounds...horrific. What happened?"

Henrietta made a face. "There's some assassin who has been killing people at night. Honestly it was bad enough when there was just Fouquet robbing people, but at least _he_ didn't leave bodies." She shuddered. "And the thing is, it seems like Cardinal Mazarin is more concerned with keeping the murders quiet than finding the killer. That was easy when everything was committed here in the palace, but when the assassin killed Count Mott one of his maids found his body, and within two minutes everyone on the estate knew about it, and you can't silence that many people."

 _Mott..._ Well, that was interesting. Either someone else was taking credit for Soujiro's kill, or was framing him for other kills. Either way it seemed like bad news.

Louise nodded. "I heard about the Mott tragedy, but I assumed it was an isolated...the other murders were in the _palace_?"

Henrietta hesitated. "Did I say that?"

"Where you _live_?"

"I know what you're going to say, Louise, and–"

"Where you _sleep_? Why isn't everyone _doing_ something?"

"They _are_ doing something!" Henrietta protested. "I know it might be hard to understand, but I'm still the safest person in the kingdom. I have a small army tasked with guarding me."

She pointed at four guards who stood near the exit. All four were women, and they carried crude looking rifles and swords. Soujiro didn't recognize the make of the gun, but they were wide at the end of the barrel. He was no expert on firearms, but he had never seen someone carry both a gun and a sword. Most of the people who were willing to put in the time to become proficient swordsmen hated guns and the era they represented.

"I know it may sound small of me to resent requiring an audience every time I use the privy," Henrietta continued, "but I couldn't get into any trouble if I tried. I'm guarded day and night...and every few weeks someone else wakes up dead."

Louise bit her lip and looked down for a moment. "Well, I'm sure they'll catch him soon. No one can escape Tristain's justice for long."

Henrietta forced a smile. "You're right. I have two Knight Captains focused on this case, and they are two of the most tenacious people I've ever met."

"Could I take a look?" Soujiro asked. The two girls looked at him in surprise, as though forgetting that he was there.

Henrietta frowned "Do you have any experience with...this sort of thing?"

"Of course. It was my last job before I became a familiar."

"You were a detective?"

"No, but I've worked with them." It was more like he made work for them, but he didn't want to bother everyone with little details.

"Then by all means," Henrietta said. "Ask for Agnes or Wardes. They're heading the investigation. Maybe you'll see something they don't."

"Thanks, Miss Henrietta." Louise shot him a venomous glare, informing him that he had messed up somewhere. Was it because he broke the, "Don't speak unless spoken to," rule? "If that's okay with you, Louise."

"Oh, sure, go ahead," she said. Make yourself useful."

Huh. Apparently he had misread her. He never understood people. Murderers, though, were his area of expertise.

WWW

Agnes was a stern woman with dirty blonde hair, a sword, and a type of gun she called a musket. Wardes was an elegant gentleman with a trimmed beard and a feather in his hat. They didn't seem to get along, but Soujiro suspected that they secretly liked each other more than they were willing to admit. Or maybe they genuinely hated each other. He couldn't tell.

"So it looks like the assassin flew in through the window, silenced a maid who saw him before she could call for help, killed two guards in the west wing, and then found Lord Alderwalls in his study before killing him and running away," Wardes said.

Agnes was the captain of the Musketeer Corps, and everyone under her command used a musket. Wardes was the captain of the Griffon Knights. Soujiro didn't know what a griffon was, but he suspected that it referred to the kind of hat he wore.

"Flew?" Soujiro asked.

" _If_ the assassin was a mage," Agnes said. "Of which there is no substantial evidence."

"I don't know what pride you can glean from believing that a common man could have committed these atrocities," Wardes said. "But the fact remains that–"

"That all the corpses have sword wounds," Agnes said.

"Which could have been inflicted by a sword wand." He motioned to his own sword at his hip. "It can cut just as easily as a common sword."

"Within a few feet. I can think of several times when it would have been easier for the assassin to kill at a distance, _if he could,_ so either he's going through a lot of trouble to hide his magical abilities, or _he doesn't have any_!"

Wardes gritted his teeth. "Or maybe his was busy casting another spell. For any proficient wind mage, flying is quicker than running, and an assassin could take advantage of the chance to eliminate the sound of his own footsteps. Invisibility would also be useful, and I don't think I need to explain why."

"Invisibility," Agnes said flatly. "Now you're saying that our assassin can cast square class wind spells."

"It would explain how he got past the guards at Count Mott's estate."

"But not why every murder in the palace has had a trail of bodies leading towards it."

Wardes threw up his hands in frustration. "You're asking me to think like a cold blooded killer!"

"Yes, Wardes. Yes I am."

"Um, I hate to interrupt," Soujiro said. "But could I have a look at the bodies?"

They looked at him, as though surprised that he was still there. He was good at that.

WWW

"So, what did your familiar do before you summoned him?"

Louise took a sip of her tea. "He referred to himself as a 'Rurouni,' which as far as I can tell means unemployed. Before that...I don't really know."

"Ah."

That was all. Just "ah." Louise cursed her foolishness. Speaking like that made her sound so ignorant! A mage ought to know her familiar better than that.

"My familiar may not seem like it," Louise said quickly, "but he's actually a very private person. I get the impression that his past is not something that he cares to discuss, so I'm giving him time until he's ready to talk about it." Yes, that sounded much better.

WWW

Most of the bodies, it turned out, had been buried. Only the four from the most recent attack were still above ground. Two were decapitated, one was stabbed through the neck, and one had his throat slit. All silent kills.

"Mr. Wardes?" Soujiro asked. "Could you magic Mr. Headless here to his feet?"

"You mean levitate him?"

"Yes please."

Wardes drew his sword, which doubled as a wand. "Do you want his head, too?"

"No, just the body, please."

Mr. Headless, a man in a guard's uniform, rose to his feet like a marionette. Soujiro made a mental note to ask Louise if they could see a puppet show sometime. He always liked the idea of puppet shows, but was always too busy to see one.

He drew Derflinger and held the flat of the blade to the headless man's stump. The corpse was a head taller than Soujiro, or at least, he used to be, but still the cut angled upwards. "Well, the killer's taller than I am. I'm guessing he's about as tall as you are, Mr. Wardes." At least. Depending on the actual strike and the length of the sword, the assassin could have been a few inches taller.

Agnes smirked. "So he's as tall as Wardes, carries a sword, and is probably a square class wind mage. I wonder if he wears a stupid hat, too."

"I hope," Wardes said coldly, "that you are jesting and not actually accusing me of this."

Agnes rolled her eyes. "The only thing I'm accusing you of, Viscount, is of wearing a stupid hat. The assassin wouldn't have killed the servant and the guards unless they would have tried to sound the alarm. If they saw you, the guards would have saluted and moved on."

Soujiro thought back to his days with Mr. Shishio. He had never needed to work under cover, but others in their organization did. It was more useful for spying than for manslaying, but Kamatari did it sometimes.

"How hard would it be to impersonate a guard?" Soujiro asked. "Would you just need to get the uniform, or would you need to enlist?"

"Depends," Agnes said. "Are you talking about musketeers or mageknights? My girls are a very close group, so if they saw a stranger in their uniform, they'd recognized her as an imposter. Mageknights, on the other hand, will take anyone who can use a wand."

"Not even close," Wardes said.

"The assassin tried to sneak in instead of disguise himself as a servant or a guard," Soujiro explained. "A servant with a sword might look funny, but not a guard with a sword. Since he didn't, then that could mean that he's a known criminal. Or in a hurry." He shrugged.

Wardes looked at him with a hint of suspicion in his eyes. "Why did the princess suggest you assist us in this again?"

"Oh, my master is a friend of hers, and when the Princess brought it up I offered to help," he said.

"And you've done this sort of thing before?"

Soujiro nodded. "For more than half my life."

Wardes looked at him with wide eyes. "Then you must have started when you were still a child! Your parents allowed this?"

"Some of my uncles weren't to thrilled, but my parents didn't object." He didn't feel like talking about his past with strangers. "But anyway, the most obvious hint about the attacker is who he attacked."

" _Whom_ he attacked," Wardes corrected. "But I agree. Unfortunately, the targets so far have been..."

"No one important," Agnes finished. "Minor bureaucrats, government officials. Viscount Alderwalls oversaw sanitation, and that job isn't known for its risk. Count Mott, at least, was enough of a pig to have made a few enemies, but the other three were some of the most insignificant people in the palace."

"Besides the servants, you mean," Wardes said.

"No, the servants do good work."

"Then let's focus on those three," Soujiro said. He thought about why Mr. Shishio would have ordered him to kill people who didn't matter...all in the same building. "It seems like the assassin is making a statement of power. He's saying, 'I can come into the palace whenever I want and kill anyone I want, and you can't stop me.'"

"So, what's next?" Agnes asked. "Is he going to start making demands?"

He cocked his head. "I don't think so. I think he's trying to make people scared without being surprised." Mr. Shishio told him once that the things you fear most were the things you already expected. "See, if you get hit by lightning and die, that's surprising, but not really scary. But if I tell you beforehand that you're going to get struck by lightning, then that's something else entirely."

Before he killed Okubo, Mr. Shishio had him kill a few other people first so people wouldn't believe that the prime minister died on his own. A few people close to the man, government officials. No one important.

Agnes and Wardes exchanged a look. "Please tell me that your metaphor doesn't mean what I think it does," she said.

"What it means is that he's been breaking into the palace to kill unimportant people," Soujiro explained, "so you'll know what's going on when he breaks into the palace to kill someone who's not unimportant."

A scream echoed through the halls, a scream of terror and of pain. Wardes gasped, Agnes swore, and Soujiro smiled.

"Looks like he's back," he said. "I'm going to go say hi." He hopped on one foot and disappeared.

WWW

Time always went by quickly for Louise when she was with the princess. It took several hours to ride to the palace from the academy, but she was surprised at how quickly it had gotten dark. That meant that she would have to stay the night. She didn't mind, in fact she preferred it that way. Despite all the time they spent apart, Henrietta remained Louise's closest friend.

And as her friend, it hurt to see the Princess so sad. Not that she could blame her. Louise imagined how she would feel if _she_ had to marry a Germanian (who in her mind looked like a male version of Kirche), and the expression "a fate worse than death" seemed less than hyperbolic.

"If you don't want to get married to him, you shouldn't," Louise argued. "You're the Princess of Tristain, not a bargaining chip! Besides, you can't convince me that a possible war with Albion would be worse than a union with _Germania_." Against Albion there would be a fight first, which meant that there was a chance to win. The Princess getting married to the Germanian Emperor seemed like skipping the fight and going straight to the surrender.

"I understand why you feel that, Louise, but it's still the best thing I can do for my kingdom," Henrietta said. "Cardinal Mazarin–"

"Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal _Mazarin_ ," Louise interrupted. "That's all I hear from you, but he's not the Princess, you are! He's just the Prime Minister." That was like an advisor, right? Right.

Henrietta smiled weakly. "You say that, but the truth is that he has been in charge of Tristan since my father died and my mother refused to take the throne."

"Then if he wants an alliance with Germania so bad, then maybe _he_ should marry the Emperor!"

Henrietta stared blankly at her, and then she bust out laughing. "I'm sorry," she said between giggles. "I'm sorry, but I just had a mental image of Mazarin in a wedding dress."

Louise smiled and laughed and they laughed together and the entire trip to the palace was worth it for that one moment.

Then a scream pierced the air, silencing them both.

WWW

Soujiro ran so fast the air felt as thick as water. He leaned into the curve and ran on the walls whenever he needed to turn, and at the top of a flight of stairs he found the room where he hoped he heard the scream from. He braced his feet against the door and his momentum snapped it off its hinges.

A sword slid through the door like butter, and he only had a moment to draw Derflinger to block before it went through him too, but a moment was all he needed.

On the bright side, the assassin was still in the room. Less fortunately, the assassin had reflexes sharp enough to attack him practically before he arrived.

The door split in two in mid air and Soujiro nearly tripped when he landed. The first thing he noticed when he had the chance to look around, though, was not the white-robed corpse lying in blood, nor the man with the bloody sword standing over it.

It was the heat. Soujiro felt like he was standing next to a furnace, or inside of one. It emanated from the man as though God himself had descended to the earth and clothed himself in charred flesh, and in that instant Soujiro _knew_ the man he faced.

His master stood before him, back from the dead, wrapped in bandages, silhouetted by the light of the two moons. Impossible, but more real than reality itself. Just like he had always been.

"Soujiro," Mr. Shishio said, a red glow in his eyes and his charred lips in a smile. "I was wondering where you had wandered off to."

WWW

A/n So there you have it, my friends. Plot divergence, just like I promised. Unfortunately, I was only able to update chapters as quickly as I have because I wrote all this before hand and posted them as quickly as I edited them. With my next chapter, I have to write it _and_ edit it, and that could take...longer than a week, at least. Fortunately, I didn't end on a cliffhanger.

Oh. Oh wait. Yes I did. Whoops.

I'm not precisely sure what Mazarin's political title is. I've heard Prime Minister and I've heard reagent, so it may depend on the translation. He always seemed to me like an advisor who handled more than he was told to because he actually knew what he was doing.

I looked up the official heights for some of the characters, and apparently people were shorter during nineteenth century Japan. Many of the characters were surprised at how small Kenshin was and Soujiro was about the same size, but Shishio wasn't that much bigger even though he seemed to be. Therefore, for no other purpose than my own, I inflated some of the characters to make them fit how I imagined them.

Thank you once more for all the reviews you've written. They've been helpful, encouraging, and more than a few of them gave me something to think about.

Also, I am without a beta for this story. If anyone reading this is tired of my continuity and grammatical errors and wants the job, send me a PM.


	6. Chapter 6

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Six

"In life, there were the likes of Battousai to oppose me. Here, there are only demons."  
-Rurouni Kenshin

Two men at the end of an era walked down the same road and ended up on opposite ends of the world.

"Mr..."

One of them found Soujiro, and with a few words and a wakizashi, saved his life.

"...Shishio."

"I'd ask you how you got here, kid, but there's only one way you could have traveled to this world."

Soujiro followed that man and accepted everything he said as the _absolute_ and _ultimate_ truth.

"So I'll ask you something else."

Soujiro followed him until the day he died.

"Where do you keep your rune? I know it's either on your hand or on your heart, and knowing how empty your heart was last time I saw you, I'm betting it's on your hand."

If someone could die, then that meant they could be wrong, too.

"...you're alive."

Right?"

"And you're still smiling." Even when he spoke lightly, his words resonated with absolute conviction. "Some things never change."

"...how?"

"Answer my question, Soujiro, and I'll answer yours."

Had he been smiling? He didn't notice. He didn't trust his mouth, so he pulled the guard off his left hand and showed him.

Mr. Shishio's eyes narrowed. " _Gandalfr._ Thought so. So Heaven's Sword becomes the Left Hand of God. Suits you." He wiped the blood off his blade and sheathed his sword. "As for your question, the mages of this world can summon a man as easily from earth as from hell. I had to leave my kingdom behind, but..." Mr. Shishio grinned. Whenever he smiled, he always looked hungry. "...I was getting bored."

"What..." _Control._ He needed control. "What are you doing here, Mr. Shishio?"

He smirked. " _That's_ your question?" He pointed at the body on the floor. "Killing that guy, of course. It will make this kingdom more flammable for later. After this I need to kill the Germanian Emperor, and then I'll play it by ear. I'd stick around to wipe out the royal family, but I could never see the point." His eyes narrowed again, slits of red light like the setting sun. "Until now. My turn. The mage who summoned you was Tristain's Princess Henrietta, wasn't she?"

"Wow," Soujiro said. "You...you actually got that one wrong. No, my master is just a friend of hers and she came over to visit." He decided not to refer to Louise by name. "Is Miss Yumi–"

Mr. Shishio turned away. "That's enough questions for tonight, Sou. But in return for the parting gift you gave me before you left, I have one for you."

 _Parting gift._ When he ended his days in Mr. Shishio's service, Soujiro told him the secret behind Mr. Himura's ultimate technique. He had assumed that was all Mr. Shishio would need to win.

"The mage who summoned you," Mr. Shishio said. "Stay away from her. Kill her if you can bring yourself to do it. I've decided long ago that the mad king who summoned me will _not_ outlive his usefulness, and until then, I'm keeping him at a distance."

Kill Louise? "Why?"

"Because you do not understand how powerful a familiar rune can be. If you allow it, the bond between you and your mage will carve out your soul until you are nothing more than an _extension of her will_."

Soujiro smiled back at him. "Kind of like how I was with you?"

Mr. Shishio frowned, but slowly his gaze softened. "Take care of yourself, kid. After spending all your days a servant, it would be a shame if you died without ever tasting freedom. I'd tell you to make sure our paths don't cross again, but we both know they will."

He stepped out the window and vanished into the night. Soujiro stood still for a moment longer, aware of nothing more than the sword in his hand. "How do you know where my path will take me? I'm a wanderer know; not even I know where I'm going." He smiled at the empty room. "Still, it was nice to see you again."

He heard a rush of wind from the stairwell that he had come in through and Wardes flew into the room. The man waved his sword wand and a blinding light illuminated the room as a nearby lamp ignited itself.

"Oh _Founder_ no," Wardes whispered, looking down at the corpse on the floor. He turned back and called out, "It's over here, Agnes!" He took a solemn look at the corpse and turned to Soujiro. "Did you see him? The man who did this?"

Soujiro nodded. "Sure did. He jumped out the window right before you got here."

"He did? Then I might still..." He flew out the window, his cape billowing behind him. Soujiro didn't know how he managed to keep his hat on while flying, but it all worked together for a nice image.

"So," Derflinger said. "That was your last master, huh?"

"Yup."

"The one you were always telling me how great he was?"

"Uh-huh."

"Huh. You know, this may be weird, but hearing you talk about him made me imagine someone playing a harp with a halo over his head."

Soujiro looked down at him. "You're right, Mr. Derflinger. That _is_ weird."

He heard a set of footsteps coming up the stairs before Agnes came into the room. She scanned the room with her hand on the hilt of her sword before her gaze rested on the dead body. "Oh, Brimir's blazing buttcrack this is bad. Where'd Wardes go?"

"Out the window," Soujiro said. "He wanted to see if he could catch Mr. Shishio."

"Who?"

He pointed at the body. "The man who did that."

Agnes looked at him, her eyes wide. "You got the assassin's _name_? What, did he spend a moment to monologue and tell you his evil plan before running away?"

"Not really, Miss Agnes, but..."

She shook her head, gritting her teeth. "Whatever. I'll need you to tell me everything you know about him."

"Everything?" Soujiro repeated. "That could take a while."

"It can't take that long. You're pretty fast, but you couldn't have been here for more than two minutes."

"I know Mr. Shishio from before," he explained. "I've known him for as long as...I've been me. But if you're not in a hurry, I'll tell you everything I can."

WWW

Cardinal Mazarin was dead. When Henrietta heard that scream, she knew that _someone_ would die; over the past few weeks it had grown into a pattern that she could predict not matter how much it surprised her. A servant, a guard, or a minor official would die, and Henrietta would remember all the times she had seen them and regret never taking the time to know them better.

And then she'd tell herself move on.

But she couldn't move on. Each time someone died, she knew that it could have been different if she had been better. Somehow. She didn't know what she could have done differently; all she knew was that she had _failed_ , and someone's life would never be the same because of it.

Cardinal Mazarin, though, was another matter. He wasn't just another nameless face in the palace; he was the man in charge. Control. She resented him for that and made no secret of it. She was the Princess of Tristain and heir to the throne, but with Mazarin in charge, she had all the freedom of a prisoner.

But with him gone, she was...free. She could annul her engagement to the Germanian Emperor if she wished and send her armies to Albion to save Prince Wales from the Reconquista. If she wanted to make the decisions that would send thousands of good men to their deaths and bring about the downfall of Tristain, she was free to do so. She was free to destroy everything she had ever loved.

She wanted to throw up.

"With your leave, your Highness," Agnes said, "we will deliver our report."

Agnes, Wardes, and Louise's familiar Soujiro stood before her. Cardinal Mazarin had selected Wardes to investigate the murders, but Henrietta insisted that Agnes be included. She wasn't sure herself why. Maybe she just wanted to pretend like she was involved in the affairs of the kingdom.

Still, the two knight captains could not have been more different. One was a viscount and a square class wind mage, and the other was born a commoner whom Henrietta had promoted to knighthood. Wardes was the epitome of etiquette and courtly graces, while Agnes could spit at courtly graces from ten feet away without trying.

All the same, her two knights were resourceful, determined, and almost as stubborn as Louise. Louise still sat with her in the sun room. If Henrietta had known that the assassin would have attacked that night, she never would have invited her friend, but she was glad Louise had come. The ill news made everything seem dark, and although she had ordered the servants to light every lamp, lantern, and torch in the palace, it hadn't helped.

Louise looked worried, but she held firm, trying–no, _choosing_ to be strong. Wardes looked disappointed in himself, and Agnes looked even more angry than usual. Louise's familiar Soujiro, though, he smiled politely just as he had before he volunteered to assist in the murder investigation.

Henrietta realized what Agnes meant when she spoke. Usually they would deliver their reports to Mazarin directly because he was the only person who knew what to do with the information, but with him dead, they were going to report to _her._

"Proceed," Henrietta said softly.

"We came as fast as we could," Wardes said. "But Cardinal Mazarin was dead by the time we arrived in his study. I pursued the assassin and set up a perimeter around the palace, but he seems to have eluded us once more." And when he said _us,_ his posture indicated that he meant _me._ The viscount failed at little, but when he did fail, he took it personally.

Agnes spoke up next. "I have some of my musketeers searching his office to see if any documents were stolen. We aren't familiar enough with his work to know for certain if anything was stolen, but nothing in the room looks disturbed." Besides the dead body.

"I see," Henrietta said. Beyond the victim, it seemed the same as the previous murders. The man came into the palace–her _palace_ –and killed and left without a trace. She was not known as a cruel woman, but if she ever caught the assassin, she would _drastically_ change her image. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes, your Highness," Agnes said, her voice cold and eager. "We have managed to identify the perpetrator."

Henrietta's eyes widened. "You have?"

Agnes nodded and turned to Louise's familiar. "Kid," she said. "You're up."

Soujiro stepped forward, his pleasant smile still on his face. "So the manslayer who has been slaying your men, it turns out he's an old friend of mine. His name is Shishio Makoto. I'll tell you all about him.

WWW

Two men at the end of an era walked down the same road for ten years. One of them valued strength above all else and sought to consume the weakness of the world in the flames of a new age.

Shishio Makoto began as one of the greatest manslayers of the Revolution, but when he outlived his usefulness, the government betrayed him, shot him in the head, doused him in oil, and lit him on fire. He considered that a valuable learning experience, and _that_ was his true strength.

His swordsmanship was rivaled by the barest few, but what set him apart was his ability to learn. No attack worked on him twice because it only took him once to see the weakness in it, and it didn't matter if that weakness came from the secret technique of a master swordsman or from the Meiji Government itself. More than anyone, Shishio Makoto saw the truth in a world of dreams.

Soujiro told his master's from Mr. Shishio's days as a _hitokiri,_ a manslayer during the Revolution up until the day he died.

WWW

If Louise found out that her familiar was lying, she would kill him. She had never known him to be dishonest before, but she had never heard him talk about his past either, and as his tale progressed, it grew more and more absurd.

"And right after I left, I found out that Mr. Shishio had died," Soujiro said. Throughout his entire story, he kept the same cheerful tone in his voice and smile on his face like it was all a game to him.

"What?" Louise demanded, forgetting her place. In the presence of the Princess, she should not have spoken without her leave, but her familiar's story had gone on long enough. "How can this Shishio person be around killing people if he's dead?"

"You know, I was wondering the same thing when I saw him," Soujiro said, sounding like a teacher pleased with the enthusiasm of a student. "So I asked him, and he told me that a mage had summoned him from hell."

The Princess gasped. "He's a demon? What sort of mage would summon something like that?"

Louise felt cold. Summoning a demon was as bad as inviting an elf over for tea. And it had been _here,_ in the _palace,_ with the _Princess_ coming and going for weeks. Unless Soujiro was making the whole thing up. Oh, Founder, she hoped he was.

"Well, he has always been a demon in his own way," Soujiro said. "Now it's just literal. I got the impression that he had been summoned as a familiar like me, and he seemed really interested in my rune."

Agnes looked at Soujiro in surprise; apparently, she had not known that he was a familiar. Wardes, though, looked at Louise.

They were engaged, technically. Their families had arranged it, but Louise had been a hopelessly romantic six-year-old and had thought that her fiancé might try to keep in touch and write her or even visit her once every few years. Instead he had disappeared entirely and had become the captain of the Griffon Knights along the way. Somehow.

If he recognized her when he came into the room, he gave no sign. She couldn't blame him for that, though. He had an urgent message for the Princess. Besides, despite what everyone said, Louise looked drastically different than she had ten years ago.

But when he found out that Soujiro was a familiar, _then_ he noticed her. Why?

"So," the Princess said, "we have a demon working for a mage who the Founder himself thought would be a good match for him."

"Mr. Shishio called him a 'mad king,' and said he planned to kill him."

Henrietta nodded. "That's helpful. It narrows the suspects down to...kings who have hidden their madness, and madmen who call themselves kings."

Louise thought of the king of Gallia, but King Joseph de Gallia was known as the Idiot King, not the mad one.

Wardes cleared his throat. "Your Highness, if I may?" Henrietta nodded, and he turned to Soujiro. "Could you show us your rune, familiar?"

"Sure." He pulled off his hand guard and displayed his rune. "It's all gibberish to me, but Mr. Shishio seemed to recognize it. He said something about the hand of God, and called me, um, Grendel or Grundy or something."

"Gandalfr," Derflinger said, speaking up for the first time.

"Are you sure that was it, Mr. Derflinger?"

"Partner, I ain't sure you're not a woman, but I'm _sure_ he said Gandalfr."

Wardes frowned. "So, let me see if I understand this. You found this Shishio person standing over the dead body of Cardinal Mazarin, and you...what? You showed him your runes, had a chat with him. Did it never occur to draw that talking sword of yours and try to slow him down?"

Soujiro cocked his head. "What, you mean, like fight him?"

"Yes, Familiar Soujiro," Wardes said, his voice cold. "Like fight him."

Soujiro laughed. He _laughed._ "I'm glad you have so much faith in me, Mr. Wardes, but if I fought him, I would _not_ have slowed him down."

"You did well," Henrietta said. "If you had died fighting him, we still would know nothing. And enough people have died tonight."

Louise looked up at the Princess and beamed inwardly. Only Henrietta could view her and her familiar in such a positive light. Wardes lowered his head. "I apologize, your Highness. The familiar is not one of my knights, and it was wrong of me to treat him as such." Beside him, Agnes subtly nodded in agreement. "With your permission, there is one more question I wish to ask."

Henrietta smiled gently. "I value your input. Ask your question."

"Soujiro, what was your role in Shishio's organization?"

"I was his assistant," he replied.

"His...assistant?"

Soujiro nodded. "Yeah, I would do pretty much anything he needed done. You know, everyday stuff like finding new talent, welcoming guests, assassinating government officials, carrying messages–"

"Wait, _what_?" Henrietta gasped.

"In any organization, communication is key," Soujiro explained lightly. "We operated over a pretty big area, and I'm a lot faster than a lot of people."

"You were an _assassin_?"

Soujiro blinked in surprise, then chuckled. "Well, yes. Nearly all the people who worked for him were. I knew pretty much everyone, and I only ever met two people there who _weren't_ trained to kill, and I'm pretty sure they could improvise if they had to."

Louise stared at Soujiro in surprise, sure that no familiar had never seemed so unfamiliar as he did to her. He was making it up. He _had_ to be. Assassins skulked in shadows and made morbid comments while sharpening knives; they didn't spend every hour of the day smiling cheerfully.

But...there was that day he dueled Guiche, and kept that same smile on his face as he strangled his opponent. And when she bought him his sword, the words he said, words of blood...

Still... _you should have told me._

Henrietta looked at her with a gaze she could not meet as if to ask, _Did you know?_ Agnes looked at her too, but her eyes were less compassionate, as though accusing her of bringing an assassin into the presence of the Princess. And another thought filled her mind, replacing the first.

 _I should have asked._

WWW

"Well, that's all in the past," Henrietta said, breaking the silence. "Isn't it?" She hated the hesitation in her voice. Doubting her friend's familiar was almost like doubting Louise herself, but looking into the boy's eyes, Henrietta couldn't believe that he had ever _seen_ death, let alone caused it.

"Absolutely," Louise said firmly, as though she were daring reality to contradict her. "Whatever he may have done and whatever he may have been apart of, he left behind when I summoned him."

Henrietta nodded in relief. She could have pardoned Soujiro for Louise's sake, but she tried to avoid becoming a corrupt monarch. She used to think that corruption was about being evil, but she had come to understand that it was more about seeing herself as above the rules she made. "And I have no interest in crimes committed on foreign soil." Granting Soujiro asylum was as far as she cared to bend the rules, and she doubted that his homeland of Japan, wherever that was, would demand his extradition. "You said he called you 'Gandalfr.' I've heard that name before somewhere. Did he say what he meant?"

Wardes spoke up. Without permission, technically, but she wished that less people would stand on ceremony. "Gandalfr was the name Founder Brimir gave to one of his familiars, also known as the Left Hand of God. I have only a passing knowledge of runes, your Highness, but the marks on his hand look like they could be a match."

Of course. Mazarin would have been disappointed to see her forgetting the names of one of the Founder's own familiars, but she had often skipped her theology lessons just to spite the Cardinal. It seemed so petty, now that he was dead. "What does it mean? The Founder's familiars have been dead for as long as he has, haven't they?"

"True," Wardes said. "But this can't be a coincidence. Unfortunately, that is the _only_ thing to be sure of. The shared rune could mean any number of things." His eyes rested on Louise and he paused before continuing. "It would take an expert on Brimiric lore and familiar theory to even guess."

Henrietta nodded. "Then I shall send a missive to Headmaster Osmond of the Academy asking him to look into it." Wardes and Agnes made the same face of disgust, which was possibly their first moment of agreement since they entered the room, but neither spoke up. Henrietta turned back to Soujiro. "Did the demon say anything else?"

Soujiro looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. Most people, especially commoners, were in awe of meeting royalty at first, and everyone else looked grim while discussing assassins, but not Soujiro. From the beginning, he had been...casual. Polite, yes, but he had treated her like something between a new friend and an old acquaintance, and Henrietta had found that refreshing after all the protocol and ceremony that caged her. But then Mazarin was assassinated, and he spoke of murders and murderers with that same familiarity.

"He said that he was _not_ going to kill you," he said. "but he _was_ going to kill the Emperor of Germania."

Henrietta's eyes widened, and then she looked down. She knew all along that she was a figurehead and that Mazarin was the true ruler, but was it really that obvious to everyone else that she wasn't worth killing? No, it was foolish to worry about that. The assassin's next target– _that_ was what mattered. "So, it appears that he is not isolated to Tristain alone. It is, at least, a relief to know that Germania didn't send the man in the first place."

Not that they needed to. Unless something stopped her wedding to their Emperor, Tristain practically belonged to them already. _Unless something stopped her..._ she'd need to tie off that loose end before long.

"Unless the assassin was deliberately misleading," Wardes said. "I can't imagine a secret enemy would so easily reveal his plans."

"I can't imagine Mr. Shishio lying to me," Soujiro said.

Agnes gave him an incredulous look, but no one challenged his statement vocally. "Just in case, I'll send a letter to the Emperor warning him of the possible threat." Or have a scribe do it. Did Mazarin employ a professional letter writer, or did he do that personally? Figurehead indeed. She must have signed and sealed a dozen letters a day for matters of state, but had never written one.

Still, as damaging as the Emperor's death would be to their alliance, Henrietta couldn't help but think how it would free her from their marriage. As good an idea as their union would be practically, she did _not_ want to marry him. She wanted to marry...

No. She could _not_ afford to daydream when her dreams were within reach. Could she?

"And while we're on the topic," Henrietta said, "Louise, would you be willing to ask the Headmaster about your familiar's runes when you return tomorrow?"

"I would be honored, your Highness," Louise said.

Henrietta realized that she had never invited her to stay the night, and Louise had never agreed. She just took it for granted that her friend would want to sleep over...right after a murderer had passed though. Well, Henrietta would offer her a full guard and set her up on the opposite side of the palace, just in case _he_ came back.

She also realized that she had been been treating her friend and guard captains as advisors in Mazarin's absence without telling them. "If any of you come up with an idea or something I may have overlooked, please feel free to speak."

Agnes spoke up. "I got something. If it's true that this assassin is working to pick off people all across the continent, then he might be connected to the _other_ that has expressed interest in world domination."

Henrietta nodded slowly. "The Reconquista."

"The who?" Louise asked.

"They're a noble faction from Albion," Henrietta explained. "They're trying to overthrow the Albion royal family and reunite Halkeginia." And they seemed to be doing a fair job of the first part. The pragmatic part of Henrietta's mind, the part that Mazarin had tried to emphasize, argued that if a family couldn't keep the throne, then it didn't deserve to rule. But the rest of her that had to see loyalty as more than a con to insure obedience couldn't view the Reconquista with anything other than contempt.

"The only reason I agreed to the alliance with Germania was to make Tristain too powerful for them to attack us if they defeated the Albion royalists." Mazarin had always said _when_ , but Henrietta had stubbornly clung to hope long after Albion faced the turning point of their civil war. But if the Reconquista was such a threat, then why hadn't Mazarin suggested an alliance with Albion instead? It was easier, after all, to douse a spark than a wild fire, and the two kingdoms had long been allies.

Maybe by the time Mazarin recognized the Reconquista for the threat it was, Albion had already lost the war.

"Your Highness," Wardes said. "The evidence linking the assassin to the Reconquista is circumstantial at best. The fact that he claimed the Emperor as his next target implies that either he is trying to deflect our attention away from Germania, or he is so arrogant that he doubts that we could stop him even if we knew his plans."

"He actually is that arrogant," Soujiro said.

Henrietta tried to think. She had enough enemies in the light without the ones hiding in shadows. Germania and Tristain had long been enemies, but that was in the past. Reconquista was the enemy of the present. _No, they're Albion's enemies,_ Henrietta thought. They hadn't so far even made a move against Tristain. Did she just want to blame them because of what they planned to do to Wales?

Yes. Yes she did. But that didn't mean she was wrong.

If she were free to do as she wished, she would fly her armies across the sea, ally herself with Albion, drive the Reconquista off the White Country, and live happily ever after.

Of course, people would die in her war, and that was if she could even get Tristain's nobility to support her, and unless the Reconquista struck first, that would never happen.

"What we need," Henrietta said, "is information. Soujiro, if this Shishio had no master to command him, what would he do?"

"Pretty much the same thing, though with less resources," Soujiro replied. "He mentioned that he was planning to kill the mage who summoned him, and since he hasn't yet, he must be getting something out of the situation, because Mr. Shishio really hates working for people. It used to make his skin crawl." He grinned. "You know, back when he still had skin."

Henrietta didn't like how he spoke of his previous master. Soujiro had reported him as an assassin and an enemy, but he still spoke of him with respect and...and loyalty. But if he were still loyal to the assassin, then he could have said nothing at all and they would still be ignorant. Besides, Louise was one of the most loyal and trustworthy people she knew; surely the Founder wouldn't grant her a traitor as a familiar.

Still, something about the boy struck her as intensely dangerous. It was his...innocence, ironically. People who knew that they were weak bowed and scraped, frightened to offend her. People who were unsure of their strength boasted so no one else would question it. Soujiro seemed merely amused by everything from Henrietta's station to Mazarin's murder.

And the fact that another human familiar could plot against his master did not comfort her.

"In the long run," Soujiro continued, "I can see him going one of two ways. One way is that Mr. Shishio sets up his own empire like he tried to do before, you know, food for the strong sort of thing, and the other is that he just lights everything on fire and sees if anything rises from the ashes like he did. Both would suit his ideology, really."

"Both would _suck_ ," Agnes blurted out. "Pardon, your Highness."

"No," Henrietta said. "You are quite right." She frowned. She had never known the value of information until now, when it seemed like she had none at all. "If he was telling the truth, then Germania will be receiving an unwanted guest in the near future, and we'll hear about it. If he is working for the Reconquista, then..." A dangerous, liberating thought sprung in her mind. "I'll need to send an envoy to Albion to see if they've seen anyone matching the assassin's description among their enemies. And if the Reconquista turns on us, any information about their tactics and numbers would be helpful. In fact..."

It was a dangerous thought of the worst kind–the kind she could justify.

"In fact," she continued. "Someone with experience fighting the Reconquista would be best." The Prince Wales she knew would be at the front of every battle and would plan every offensive. "If we could bring someone like that back it Tristain, it would be ideal." And the fact that she had been in love with Wales for years was totally irrelevant.

"I'll go," Louise said.

Henrietta snapped out of her daydream. "What?"

"I mean," she said, composing herself. "If her Highness wills it, I would be honored to perform this task for you." As if flowery language made it any better.

"But Louise, it will be dangerous!"

"Yes," she admitted. "But you said so yourself that we are on the brink of war. And _I_ said myself that I'd be willing to travel to the ends of the earth for you, and Albion is only the edge of the continent."

Louise was one of the few, no, the _only_ person whom Henrietta trusted completely, and while there were more powerful mages that she could send, none would be more determined. And if Henrietta sent her as an ambassador, then she would be protected from all but the most dishonorable enemies. Founder send that the Reconquista had not fallen so far.

"Very well," she said. "I shall make you my ambassador in this matter."

Louise squealed in delight, as though she were not being sent into mortal peril. "Oh, thank you, Princess! I will _not_ let you down!"

"If you come back alive, I'll be happy." What was she _thinking_ , sending Louise to Albion at a time like this? Was Wales worth it? Was Tristain?

Wardes kneeled before her. "Your Highness, might I accompany Louise Françoise on this mission?"

Henrietta frowned. Wardes was an ideal knight in most ways, but in others he felt hollow in contrast to Agnes's burning passion. He was ambitious, driven, but to what she couldn't say. "Why do you desire this, Wardes?"

His eyes flickered toward Louise. "Because it is a dangerous mission you are sending her on, your Highness, and because she is my fiancé."

Henrietta blinked, and looked at him and Louise. She remembered vaguely Louise mentioning that her family had arranged something, but...Wardes? Not bad.

At least _he_ was Tristanian.

Louise seemed flat footed by the offer. "Well, Louise, it's your mission. I'll leave such matters to you."

Louise opened her mouth and closed it again. "Um, okay."

WWW

Soujiro was starting to like Henrietta. When disaster happened, she acted instead of panicked. He doubted that she made the best decision or even a good one, but among leaders, going somewhere was what mattered. Knowing where you were going was secondary.

Mr. Shishio was still going to eat her alive, but he did that with everyone.

"There are three entrances to this room," Agnes explained. "The balcony, the door, and that bookcase over there. Four, counting the fireplace, but it's been so long since the grates have been oiled, I've known quieter torture devices."

She had gotten it into her mind that he was some sort of bodyguard. He didn't see the point in correcting her, so he let her show him around the room that Louise would be staying in. Louise had stayed behind with the Princess to go over some details, so Soujiro went ahead, playing his role while thinking about how funny it would be to imagine Mr. Shishio with a guard.

"The balcony is warded," Agnes continued, "so it should alert you if anyone comes through that way. It sure as heck hasn't gone off for your demon assassin these past few weeks, but he might have just found another way in. Or used some magic mumbo jumbo. If anything comes up, there will be a few guards posted right out the doors as well as patrols through the halls. Any questions?"

"Sure," he said. Someone had lit all the lamps in the room, and Soujiro went about dousing them. If someone were coming from outside, he'd need his night vision. "Do you believe in ghosts? Not the dead people kind, but the other kind?"

He had heard before that you could tell what kind of place something was by what haunted it, where prisons felt full of despair even where there weren't any people in it. Back when he had been staying with his relatives, the place had felt cruel and harsh even after everyone had gone to bed.

He couldn't tell what feeling permeated the palace, but the whole place felt false. But again, he couldn't be sure.

"Um, no," Agnes said. "Do you have any...relevant questions?"

"Oh." Soujiro had never thought about it before, but the beds on stilts that everyone slept in were just high enough for someone to hide beneath them. "No, I'm good."

"Then I got one," Agnes said. "You told everyone Shishio's story, but what about yours? You're pretty fast, so where'd that come from? You have a mage enhance your joints or something?"

He shook his head. "No, no mage. When I was a little kid, I decided that I'd rather live than die, and the rest was just repetition."

She nodded, thoughtfully. "Well, if you need anything, just scream bloody murder. We're used to that by now."

WWW

It was a cold night, the sort that made Louise wish that she owned a pair of shoes. Her sore hands throbbed with her pulse and felt raw from all the work she had done, but she had much more left to do. If she didn't finish, then she'd have to sleep outside again, and this wasn't a night to spend outside.

A clang of metal on metal rang through the air, followed by a scream. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the night air. Whoever had screamed sounded like he needed help. It would be better to stay away from whatever was going on, but she scurried towards the sound anyway. Besides, it was dark, she was small, so no one would see her.

Hopefully.

Louise crept through an alleyway and peered around a corner, and that was when she saw him. He stood in the street with a corpse at his feet and a sword in his hand. Bandages covered every inch of his body and the air rippled around him as it would around a bonfire. His opponent raised a sword against him, but the bandaged man was faster, and sliced him in half. His opponent didn't have time to scream, but the sound of the metal scraping against every vertebrae in his spine was a scream enough.

And Louise was next, if he saw her. _Run,_ she told herself, but that would get her killed for sure. She stilled her breathing and stepped backwards...and snapped a twig. No one would have noticed in the day time, but at night when all were dead or sleeping, it sounded like shattering glass. _Oh no,_ she thought. _Oh, gods no._

The man turned and looked at her, and she felt as though a lifetime of agony and rage pierced through her through the slits between his eyelids. She was too scared to run. She couldn't even scream.

"You...saw me." It was both an accusation and a sentence. He stepped towards her and raised his sword. The moon shone behind him, as pale as a skull, and Louise knew that she had to do something, but all she could think about was his sword had done to his last victim, and what it was about to do to her.

"You must...die."

She woke up screaming. She felt trapped and thrashed and kicked until she broke free of whatever bound her. Her blankets. Her blankets bound her. She collapsed back on her bed and breathed slowly as the air chilled the sweat off her skin.

Only it wasn't her bed. It wasn't even her nightgown. Founder she had been _abducted_! She sat up and looked around. _Oh, Founder, I'm...I'm in the palace._ She breathed a sigh of relief as the whole evening came back to her, the visit with the Princess, the emergency council that she had wound up being a part of, and finally the mission she had volunteered for.

She was about to go back to sleep when she saw a figure lurking in the shadows by the wall, making no more noise than a statue. "Who's there?" she demanded, though it came out as more of a squeak. She lunged for her wand on her nightstand, but it wasn't there because it wasn't her nightstand any more than it was her bed. _Other side._

"Is that a trick question?" came a familiar voice. _Her_ familiar's voice. "Because I'm here, and you're here, but I don't see anyone else. Though I could check under the bed if you want. Four or five people could probably fit under there, no problem."

She flopped back down on her pillow. "No, Soujiro, that's not..." She caught an image in her mind of the assassin her familiar had described at the meeting, more demon than man, wrapped in bandages to cover the scars he had received from his own personal hell. And she thought of the man she had dreamed about. "Actually, go ahead."

Soujiro got on his hands and knees and peered under the bed with a smile on his face. She groaned inwardly as she imagined what the Princess would think if she knew that Louise was worried about monsters under the bed. What was she, five? "Not that I'm afraid," she added. "I just know that you'll be worried about it all night unless you check." There.

"You're not?" he asked, standing up, still smiling. "You kind of should be, all things considered."

"What? Why? The Princess is the one in danger, not me."

"Are you sure about that, Miss Louise?"

She swallowed. "...yes? I mean, why would anyone be after me? I'm just..." _Zero._ "...no one."

"If you say so, but when I was talking to Mr. Shishio, he seemed a _lot_ more interested in you than in her."

"He did? Why? What did I _do_?"

"Well, you summoned me for one. I didn't mention this earlier because it didn't seem important, but he assumed that I was the Princess's familiar."

Part of her wanted to cry. Out of all the people she would have wanted to mistake her for a princess, an assassin wasn't one of them. "You told her that you weren't, right?"

He nodded. "I figured you would want me to. I didn't tell him who summoned me, but I'm sure he'll find out on his own."

Actually, mistaking Louise for the Princess wasn't that much of an error. The house La Valliere started from an illegitimate child of one of Tristain's kings a few centuries back. After Queen Marianne, Louise was probably Henrietta's closest living relative. But what that had to do with summoning Soujiro as a familiar, she could not begin to guess.

"He also said that you're going to devour my soul unless I kill you first," he added, as though it were nothing more than an afterthought.

Louise bolted upright in her bed. "I'm going to do what unless you do _what?_ "

"But that's nothing you need to worry about," he assured her. "You should just focus on getting some sleep for your important mission tomorrow."

"I...right." Rule of Steel. She wouldn't let something like fear get in the way of serving the Princess. She lay down again. "Besides, that guy's a demon. I bet everything he says is a lie."

"Sure," Soujiro agreed, but he hesitated a moment too long before answering.

Louise frowned. She didn't like how he talked about his former master. He responded to everything from breakfast to murder with the same uniform cheer, but with Shishio he spoke with a reverence she hadn't heard from him since she bought him a sword.

"Don't forget," Louise said. "I'm your master now, not that Shishio guy. I won't have you running off to him just because he's back."

"I know, I know." He returned to his spot by the wall and sat down with his sword in his lap. "You have many things to worry about, Miss Louise, but that's not one of them. I'll be sure to keep an eye on things until morning and quiet Mr. Derflinger if he starts snoring again."

"I do not snore!" Derflinger protested.

"Of course you don't."

"You've been watching me sleep?" It shouldn't have mattered; he was her familiar, he had been sleeping in her room for weeks. Still, she could usually tell when someone was watching her and assumed that if someone were, she'd wake up. So much for that.

Soujiro nodded. "And man has it been boring. All you do is breathe, and occasionally roll over."

Louise pulled the blankets up over her and closed her eyes. "You have a terrible bedside manner, you know that?"

He chuckled. "You may have a point there. In my defense that's not a skill that has ever come up in my last job, but I'll be sure to work on it."

She smiled to herself. Part of her wanted him to lie down in the bed next to her, but that would be silly. She used to run to her sister Cattleya's room whenever she had a nightmare, but that was a long time ago and she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was going to do important things the next morning, things that would affect the entire kingdom.

Besides, how was he going to stay awake to keep watch if he was lying down? Ridiculous.

WWW

A/n This is about how long it usually takes for me to update, though hopefully later chapters will be easier to write. This one was hard because most of it was a group of people talking, which has always been hard for me. Two people talking flows easily, and a group of people doing things is engaging, but meetings are nearly as bad as meticulously detailed fight scenes.

Also, thank you to everyone who has supported, encouraged, and corrected me through reviews. If it weren't for you, I would have assumed that this story was not worth continuing. Again, thank you.

I don't know who started the trend of having Louise see her familiar's memories in her dreams, but I suspect it was from one of the many, many Fate/Stay Night crossovers. Whatever it was, I decided to steal it, because if I didn't want to steal other people's idea, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.


	7. Chapter 7

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Seven

By the look of her, Louise hadn't slept any better than Henrietta had. She cursed herself for offering her friend the chance to go on this mission for her, but if Henrietta rescinded her call now, it would shame her. It would be as if she told Louise that she was inadequate, that Henrietta didn't believe in her.

No, the best thing she could do–the _only_ thing she could do–was to let Louise proceed to Albion, and pray that she came back safely.

She was the ruler of Tristain, at least in name. Maybe one day she'd be able to do more than let other people fight her battles, but to purchase a better future, the only coin she had was her friends.

"This," she said, handing Louise a paper marked with the royal seal, "is the letter for Headmaster Osmond. It asks him for information about your familiar's runes, and if Soujiro does share the runes of Gandalfr, what that means."

Gandalfr was a legend, the familiar who protected the Founder while he cast his spells. Henrietta would feel much better if she knew that Louise had a legend looking after her. Instead of an assassin.

"This one," she said, handing her another letter, "is for Prince Wales, should you find him. In case you lose it, the letter informs him that we need information on the Reconquista and asking him to send us one of his own. I know you could tell him that yourself, but I'd rather he receive my own words if possible." Words that begged him to flee his dying kingdom, words that reminded him how much he meant, not to Tristain, but to her.

It was cruel, perhaps, to ask a dying man to live, but she _meant_ to be cruel, she _meant_ to tempt Wales to take the dishonorable path and abandon the kingdom he couldn't save instead of dying with it. Right now, she didn't want him to be honorable. She wanted him to live.

"I understand," Louise said, taking the letter. "I will protect it with my life."

"No!" Henrietta said quickly. "No, the letter is secondary. If you die, you won't be able to deliver it. I want you to protect _yourself_ with your life."

Louise frowned. "How does that work?"

"I..." How _did_ that work? "It doesn't matter. Anyway, you will be traveling under the mantle of an ambassador of Tristain. If the Reconquista intercepts you, I don't know how they'll react to you trying to reach the royalists, so tell them that I sent you as an ambassador to them. They'll be interested in making a deal with Tristain, so promise them anything anything they want, and then get out of there as soon as you can. If you're lucky, they'll give you an armed escort back here, but if not, improvise."

Louise's eyes grew wide. "But, your Highness! I can't deliberately misrepresent you! That would be almost as bad as selling you out!"

"No!" she said sternly. "I'll have none of that. You'll sell me out, and you'll like it!"

Louise's shoulders drooped. "Okay, but only because you told me to."

Henrietta sighed inwardly. Louise was another honorable soul whom Henrietta would rather just come back alive. The entire house La Valliere was of the old nobility who valued honor more than their own lives. She plucked off a ring from her finger, the Water Ruby, and handed it to her.

"Take this too," she said. "Prince Wales will recognize this and will know that I sent you if you show it to him. He has a matching ring, the Wind Ruby, which will react with this one and will help you identify him. But if you need the funds, sell it. I don't want you to end up stranded in Albion with no way home."

Louise looked up from the blue gemstone in her hands in shock. "What? But Princess! This is an ancient artifact, passed down through the Royal Family since...practically since _Brimir!_ I can't–"

Henrietta gave her a stern look. "Louise..."

Louise sighed and put the ring on her finger. "I'll sell it and I'll like it."

WWW

Two letters and a ring should not have weighed so much, but they did. Louise ran her thumb over the latter and felt in her pocket for the former for the third time since receiving them. She wasn't going to lose them; she wasn't going to _fail._

She walked down the steps outside the main entrance to the palace. It had always seemed so secure in the past, its stone walls towering over the city's skyline, but strangely Louise felt safer outside. The palace had too many shadows; it was better to be out in the sunlight. Out here, no would could sneak up on her, no one could–

"Hi, Miss Louise!"

Louise yelped (in a perfectly ladylike fashion) and whipped out her wand to find...Soujiro. "Oh, it's you." She glared at him. "Don't do that. _Never_ do that!"

He cocked his head innocently. "Do what? I just wanted to tell you that I got the horses ready for you like you asked."

He motioned to two horses behind him, so not only did a trained assassin manage to sneak up on her (she still had trouble thinking of him that way), but so did a couple of pack animals.

In her defense, she was really, _really_ tired.

"Nevermind," she said, shaking her head. It wouldn't do her any good to jump at shadows in broad daylight. She climbed onto her horse and watched Soujiro do the same. Was he as tired as she was? If he really stayed up all night watching over her, he had to be, but he didn't look like it. Maybe that was an assassin thing, where you didn't need sleep. Or emotions.

No, that was stupid. Every familiar had needs, and every mage had the responsibility of fulfilling them, regardless of how much or how little the familiar complained.

Wardes was waiting for them at the castle gate. Her heart flew a bit when she saw him with his long, platinum blonde hair and his sharp grey eyes. She didn't know what he thought of her and part of her assumed that after all these years he would have found someone better, but when she volunteered to go into danger, he jumped to involve himself, so...that meant something. Didn't it?

"Louise Françoise," he said from atop his griffon. His voice was...solid. Not passionate or flowery like she had heard from some of the boys at the Academy when they tried to woo girls by reciting bad poetry, just there. Dutiful. "I have a few obligations to take care of with my knights. I'll rendezvous with you at the Academy and we'll make our way to the port city La Rochelle."

He waited atop his griffon as though expecting something. Oh, right. The Princess left _her_ in charge. "Sounds good," she said. "I'll...I'll meet you there."

He nodded in approval. As Captain of the Griffon Knights, he had more experience giving orders than she did, so she must have done something right. "I promise to do everything in my power to protect you, Louise." He looked toward Soujiro and his gaze hardened. "All the same, be careful."

His griffon spread its wings and took to the air.

WWW

When Louise had first seen Headmaster Osmond when she joined the academy, she wondered how such an imbecile had ended up in charge. Now, a year later, she sometimes believed that the old man merely pretended to be senile for...headmaster reasons?

"I'll be absent from classes for an indeterminate period of time, under orders of her Highness, Princess Henrietta," she explained while in his office after returning to the Academy.

"Ah, clever," he said, distracted by a small puzzle box.

"Um, clever, sir?"

He nodded. "Most people just go to a relative's funeral, but then they run out of grandparents. But it doesn't matter what your excuse is as long as you can catch up on your studies when you get back."

Louise frowned, but she didn't press the issue. "I also have a letter for you from the Princess." She double checked the envelope to make sure that it was the one for the Headmaster and not the one for Prince Wales. "Her Highness requests you to have someone look into my familiar's rune." She had left Soujiro to pack her things for the trip.

His eyes widened at that, but he made no move to take the letter. "I was wondering when you'd figure it out."

"Wait, you knew?" she gasped. "But...how?"

He shrugged. "I'm a teacher; I know nearly everything. Of course, it's that _nearly_ part that comes back to bite you, and not in the fun way." Louise shuddered at the mental image. Osmond was a hundred years too old to have fun being bitten. "But what gave him away?"

She steeled herself. "A demon broke into the palace, murdered the Prime Minister, and told Soujiro that he was Gandalfr."

Osmond nodded, unfazed. "Yes, that would do it. Personally I was hoping for some demonstration of his abilities, but if creatures from some fell underworld are going to involve themselves, it's best to know that before everything else happens."

 _Everything else?_ "Like what?"

Osmond shrugged.

"And if you knew this all along, when were you planning on telling anyone?" _Like me?_ If she had summoned something mythic, then she would have liked to know before everyone made fun of her for it.

He shrugged again. "I was being discreet."

"Discreet?" she repeated. "That's just a fancy term for doing nothing."

He smiled patronizingly. "When you get to be my age, you learn a _lot_ of fancy terms for doing nothing."

She sighed. It wasn't her place to criticise the Headmaster, even when he was being frustrating. "So what does it mean if my familiar is Gandalfr?"

"Well, considering how the last known Gandalfr died six thousand years ago and the Hero of Ivaldi has never been confirmed to be, well, anything, not a lot. He's supposed to be good with weapons, and I've seen him carrying a sword around recently. Does anything change when he uses it?"

"Um, yes?" _He gets creepy._

"Fantastic! You currently know more than all the other experts on the subject put together." He waved his hands as though shooing her away. "Now, go write a thesis on it, or whatever it is you kids do at your relatives' funerals."

WWW

 _So,_ Louise thought as she walked down the stairs from the Headmaster's office. _Gandalfr confirmed, which tells me diddly squat. Except that he can use weapons._ She had never seen him use a sword except for on a tree, but he knew how to do that before she even summoned him, didn't he? Besides, she might run into Reconquista _mages_ in Albion! What kind of idiot brought a sword to a wand fight?

Still, a sword that he knew how to use was better than a wand that never did what she wanted. And Soujiro always did what she wanted, even if he did get kind of weird at times, so there was that.

She opened the door to her bedroom and saw Soujiro packing her bags, exactly as she wanted, and she saw Kirche sitting on her bed.

Kirche.

On her bed.

On her...she screamed. "You! What are you _doing_ here? _Here!_ In my _room!_ _Why?_ "

"Good morning to you, too, Valliere." She leaned against the bedpost provocatively. She did everything provocatively and everything she said sounded like an innuendo. With her crimson hair, her legs that went on for days, and her breasts that threatened to spill over her less than conservative neckline, she always looked like she had stepped out of a lab run by teenage boys. "I just dropped by to keep your cute familiar company while you were away." She smiled at him and...licked her lips.

That was a warning flag. _Three_ warning flags, bright red with Kirche's big ugly face emblazoned on them.

Louise whipped out her wand and pointed it at her. "Off my bed!"

Kirche made a pouting face. "But your chairs are so _stiff_ and _hard._ " If anyone else had said those words, they would have sounded perfectly innocent, but Kirche made them sound like a dirty joke.

"Off!"

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Zero. Your wand is pointed right at me. I'm currently the safest person in the room."

 _Justifiable homicide. Any judge would agree._ "Fireball!" The lamp on the bedstand exploded. "...that was a warning shot."

"You know," Kirche said, brushing dust off her partially buttoned blouse, "instead of wrecking the place, we could just be civil with each other."

Louise ground her teeth, but she put her wand away. She was a noble; she could be civil to anyone, no matter how much they didn't deserve it. "Good morning, Zerbst," she forced herself to say. "I see you're still greeting the world with legs wide open." As civil as a state.

"Good morning to you too, Valliere," she replied. "Judging by the stick you still have up your butt, I see that you still haven't figured out what your familiar's for."

Louise made a face. "That's sick, Kirche. I swear, you're the only person in this school who would think to use one's familiar for s...for s...that."

Kirche smirked. Every time Kirche smirked, Louise was convinced a puppy died. "Oh, I wouldn't say _that_. We've all seen how affectionate Guiche is with his mole, and that's just in public. And I hear that Montmorency has tried to turn her frog into a prince in more ways than one, if you know what I mean."

Louise grimaced at the mental onslaught. " _Yes,_ Kirche, I know what you mean! I always know what you mean, because you always mean the same thing! And every time you open your mouth I want to kill you!"

Her familiar looked up from the bags he was packing. "Do you need any help with anything, Miss Louise?"

"No, Soujiro, stay out of this."

"See, that's your problem," Kirche said. "If you were smart, you'd want him _in._ " She winked, just in case she wasn't obvious enough.

Louise ground her teeth. "Why are you here?"

"Oh, I noticed that you and your cute familiar were gone all day yesterday, and as soon as you get back, you're packing your bags. If I didn't know you any better, I'd say that the two of you were trying to elope." She smirked. "But I _do_ know you, and you're not nearly that much fun."

"That's ridiculous!" Louise fumed. "I'm plenty of fun!"

Kirche raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so you _are_ trying to elope."

"No! We're going on a mission!"

"A mission?" She leaned forward, curious. "Where to?"

"I, uh, I can't say." She had said too much already.

"A _secret_ mission?" Now she sounded interested.

"No!" Louise tried to keep the panic out of her voice. "No, there is no mission, it's not a secret, and you're not coming with us!"

Kirche jumped off the bed. "Oh, trust me, Louise. I am _so_ coming." She ran out the door and down the hall. She banged on someone's door and opened it up without waiting for a response. "Hey, Tabitha! I'm going on a secret mission right now! Wanna come with?"

A voice, barely audible, whispered back, "Reading."

"Come one, Tabitha! You can read whenever you want! This is our chance to meet hot guys, and go on an adventure, and meet hot guys!"

The hall fell silent for a moment. "Reading."

Kirche sighed and turned back to Louise. "This will just take a minute for me to talk some sense into her. Don't leave without us!"

Louise turned to her familiar. "Did you hear that? If we go right now, we can leave without her! Soujiro, is everything packed?"

"I think so, but let me just double check everything, and–"

"No time! Kirche is after us! We're leaving now!" She hesitated, and looked at the spot where Kirche had been sitting. "Just one more thing." She grabbed a parchment and a quill and scribbled down, _Burn and replace._ She placed the note on her bed and smiled at her handiwork.

 _No, that's no good,_ she thought. _The servants might get the wrong idea._ As a noble, she didn't care what the commoners thought of her, but it wouldn't do to cause inappropriate rumors. She added at the bottom, _Kirche was here._ There. She couldn't be more clear than that. Now the servants would know that Kirche had sat on her bed and they'd burn the defiled bedclothes and replace them by the time she got back.

" _Now_ we're leaving!" she ordered. Soujiro grabbed the bag and the two of them ran down the hall.

"Okay, you two run ahead," Kirche said as they passed by. "I'll catch up."

"No you won't!" Louise called over her shoulder. Outside, she saw Wardes waiting for her standing next to his griffon, his cloak billowing majestically behind him...talking to Guiche.

"No!" she declared, advancing on the overly flamboyant prettyboy. "No! Nu-huh! Not a chance!"

Guiche blinked. "What?"

"No! Princess Henrietta entrusted this mission to _me_ , just _me,_ and I'm not sharing!"

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, Louise," Guiche said, holding his rose-wand in front of him like a stage prop. "I was merely talking to the Captain of the Griffon Knights about what sort of advice he might share with an aspiring young...hold on, mission? _Princess_? Count me in!"

That...that one was on her. Louise could admit that. Or maybe it was on Kirche, because it was her fault Louise was so upset. Still, that didn't change the fact that the mission, entrusted to her by Princess Henrietta herself, had gotten off to the worst start possible.

"Oh, wow!" Kirche said from behind her. She had managed to drag Tabitha away from her room, but not from her book. "Is tall, silver, and drop-dead gorgeous coming with us?" She smiled down at her friend. "See? I told you there'd be hot guys."

 _Worst start ever._

WWW

A/n So, this is a lot shorter than some of my other chapters, but it's been a while since I updated, and this seemed like as good of a cut off point as any. Once more, thank you to everyone who left reviews. It is your kind words that purchases quality fanfiction for everyone else.


	8. Chapter 8

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Eight

"Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken."  
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Louise, her familiar, her fiancé, her fiancé's griffon, Guiche, Guiche's familiar, Tabitha, Tabitha's familiar, and six horses departed the Academy for the port town La Rochelle. Also, Kirche tagged along, because Louise couldn't figure out how to get rid of her.

"Louise," Wardes said gently after they had departed. "Why don't you ride with me on my griffon? We have a great deal to catch up on."

She swallowed, hoping that the bouncing trot of her horse would hide the fact. Founder, was he _flirting_ with her? He totally was! She felt her face turned red. _Quick! Say something smooth!_ "Um, I don't know..."

"I'll ride with you!" Kirche offered immediately.

"Hey!" she snapped. "He asked me first!" She slid off her horse and ran over to Wardes.

He picked her up and set her on the griffon in front of him. "Ah, my dear, dainty Louise," he said. "You haven't changed a bit."

"I...haven't?" She hadn't changed since when? Since they got engaged ten years ago when she was _six_?

"You're still as light as a feather," he said with a smile.

Oh. So he was saying that she wasn't fat. That was good. Right?

"You know," he said, "we'd get there faster if we all flew. This griffon can't hold anyone else, but I'm sure your friends would all fit on the dragon."

"The dragon?" Soujiro repeated from behind them. He sounded awed. "You hear that, Mr. Guiche? I've never ridden a dragon before."

"Then you gotta try it!" Kirche called down from Sylphid's back. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't fall off." Louise could practically _hear_ her wink.

"No!" she yelled, more loudly than she intended. And her fiancé's ear was right next to her! "I mean, no thank you, Viscount. I'm um...afraid of heights."

"You are?" Kirche started laughing. "Wow, Zero, that is so you!" Louise forced herself to ignore her.

"I'm sorry, my dear Louise," Wardes said. "I was not aware of this."

"Um, yes. There was a, um, a negative experience in my past with my mother's manticore." _Please stop talking,_ she told herself. "Whenever I get off the ground, I get nauseous." _Just when I couldn't embarrass myself more, I open my mouth. Brilliant._ Because if there was anything that a skilled wind mage would find more pathetic than total magical incompetence, it was acrophobia.

WWW

As the hours passed on the road, Soujiro knew that he should be paying attention to his surroundings in case of an ambush, but he was tired and had too much to think about. Besides, he was traveling with a literal _dragon_ , and if anything discouraged bandits, it was a giant monster.

Mr. Shishio had been fond of bandits. While there were plenty of thugs who worked for him, he preferred to work with a handful of elite swordsmen, and when he ever needed the extra muscle, he would send a message to some of his contacts to let them know that a certain village was defenseless for anyone who wanted to burn and plunder.

For his own part, bandits usually avoided Soujiro, because he usually travelled on foot so he didn't look like he had much money. When they did bother him, he could easily have outrun them, but he often killed them instead. After all, if they were so much weaker than him, then it would have been wrong to let them live.

And now Mr. Shishio was back and wanted Soujiro to oppose him for some reason. Well, if that was what Mr. Shishio wanted, then the best way Soujiro could oppose him would be to not oppose him at all. Of course, Mr. Shishio wasn't the sort of person you _could_ oppose. Those who served him added to his already incredible strength, and those who fought against him served as an example to the rest when he defeated them.

That was what Mr. Himura was supposed to do. By killing him, Mr. Shishio would prove himself to be the strongest _hitokiri_ of the Revolution, from an age where natural selection was more selective and you had to be _truly_ strong to survive, before the Meiji government had made everyone soft and weak.

But in a way the same thing had happened, but instead of Mr. Shishio beating Mr. Himura, he had defeated death itself, proving that he was stronger than even natural law. And what was it that he had promised Soujiro that night in the rain? _I'll make you the strongest swordsman in the world,_ he had said. _Second only to me._

 _So that's it,_ he thought, a smile tugging at his lips. _I'll become stronger, stronger than anyone else and maybe even stop you a few times. And then you'll kill me, and show this world than_ no one _can stand against you._

That didn't sound so bad. He hadn't seen any of his friends in a while, and Miss Yumi was probably the Queen of Hell by now.

But still, the _act_ of dying bothered him, and not just the pain of being split open and spilling out. After having Mr. Shishio's teachings ingrained into him throughout all those years, dying felt wrong, liked failing life. Which technically it was.

The sun began to set in the west, two moons began to rise in the east, and to the north a mountain canyon split open revealing La Rochelle. The houses were carved out of stone in the cliff face as if by magic. Maybe they probably were. No bricks, just a single, house-shaped rock per building, half swallowed by the canyon.

The canyon widened deeper into the town into the shape of a gently squinting eye, and as room provided Soujiro saw more and more building made of wood. They found a building called the Goddess Inn to spend the night in.

They locked up the horsed in the inn's stables, but they let the griffon and the dragon loose in the sky. That made sense. Both of those creatures looked like they could eat a person, which entitled them to a few luxuries.

Soujiro would have been happy to go straight to bed, but no one else wanted to pass up the chance for a hot meal. The food was better than what he had at the Academy where he ate with the servants instead of the nobility, but the meal came with a glass of wine and he had always been a tea and water guy. It wasn't even a swordsman's aesthetic of asceticism to remain alert at all times–even Mr. Shishio relaxed with his pipe and a cup of _saké_ every now and then. Soujiro just didn't like the taste.

"So," Kirche said as they finished their meal. "I'm thinking that we need a codename for our secret mission, so we can talk about it without drawing attention to ourselves."

Louise looked down her nose at her. "Or we could not talk about it at all. Remember: _secret_!"

"You still haven't told me what it is," Kirche said.

"Yes," Louise agreed. "There's a reason for that."

She shrugged. "Well, whatever. I'll figure it out on my own."

Louise scoffed. "Not likely."

"Then _Tabitha_ will figure it out on her own, and she'll tell me," Kirche replied. Next to her, Tabitha nodded without looking up from her book. Kirche slid her chair next to Soujiro and slipped an arm around him. " _Or,_ maybe your cute familiar will give me a hint."

Soujiro didn't know how to handle her advances. One of the advantages of traveling with Mr. Shishio was that none of the women they came across noticed him, but he couldn't expect Louise to pull off the same charismatic attraction. Ultimately, Soujiro responded to Kirche in the same way he responded to everything else.

He smiled politely.

"I know we're going to Albion," Kirche said. La Rochelle was a major port town and the main way to get to Albion from Tristain. "I know the Princess sent you, and unless you've been living an _incredible_ double life you're not her usual helper, so I'm guessing this isn't routine." She glanced up to where Wardes was speaking with the innkeeper. " _And_ she sent Captain Studmuffin with you, so it's going to be dangerous...but if it's dangerous, why'd she send you?"

Louise gripped a butter knife in her hand as her face turned a fascinating shade of red. "You know what? Maybe you should focus less on being a slutty detective, and more on keeping your hands off my familiar!"

"I don't hear him objecting."

"Soujiro," Louise said. "Remove her hands."

"Sure thing, Miss Louise." He hesitated. "Do you mean from me, or in general?"

Louise rolled her eyes. "Pick one."

He had never been a fan of dismemberment, so he grabbed Kirche's wrists and pulled her hands away from him.

"Oh, Soujiro," Kirche said, holding a hand over her heart and sighing dramatically. "I'm hurt!"

That hurt? Weird.

"Well I for one don't care what the mission is," Guiche said. "We are about the business of her sublime Highness herself, and surely whatever it is will yield glory and honor worthy of my house. Still, for convenience's sake, we ought to have a name for our mission, and it should be suitably grand and majestic, like Stop the Moon, or Save the Whales."

Louise flinched at the second one.

"What, really?" Kirche asked. "But...Louise, Albion is a floating continent! There aren't any whales there...except..." She gasped. "No! No way!"

"Secret!" Louise said, her voice a squeak.

Kirche slammed her fist down on the table. "Hottest man alive, Louise! He won last year's Most Eligible Bachelor award _hands down_!" She turned to Tabitha. "Can you believe this?" Tabitha nodded. "Of course you can."

"Okay, fine!" Louise said. "But just remember, when we get there, he's off limits!"

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Right. Your familiar's off limits, your fiancé's off limits. According to you, _everyone's_ off limits"

"I'm serious! He's so far out of your league it's not even funny!"

"I'll let him be the judge of that."

Guiche cleared his throat. "Are you two talking about me, or someone else? Because I'm feeling described."

Kirche glanced at him and looked back at Louise. "Has he been here the whole time? Oh, wait, I remember his mole got too friendly with you before we left. Hey, is Verdandi off limits too? I'm not saying I'm interested, I'm just saying I'd like to know."

Before Louise could respond, Wardes sat down next to her. He set down a series of keys on the table. "I purchased some rooms for the next two nights. There won't be any ships leaving for Albion for two more days at least, so we have all of tomorrow off. Feel free to relax, but it's best if we all keep a low profile. I'll see you all in the morning."

WWW

A bed on stilts, Soujiro decided, was far more comfortable than he had expected it to be. He hadn't even come close to falling off and the mattress was so soft it felt like it was trying to eat him. He preferred something more solid, but he appreciated the novelty.

Guiche wasn't a bad roommate either. He had stayed up late talking either to Soujiro or to himself. Soujiro couldn't tell which, but he listened politely all the same. Guiche had left shortly after that, mentioning a pretty girl he had seen downstairs and how he was going to "woo" her. He had returned a few minutes later, oddly silent.

In the morning Soujiro had scarcely gotten out of bed before he heard a knock on the door. He slipped Derflinger through his belt and opened it.

"Mr. Wardes!" he said. "Good morning!"

Louise's fiancé still wore the same wide-brimmed hat. The feather looked like he had gotten it from the giant bird creature he had been riding, and it made him look several inches taller. Wardes could _loom_ with that hat. Soujiro respected someone who knew how to loom right.

Guiche lept to his feet, stumbling only slightly on his tangled sheets. "Viscount! What brings you here?"

"Guiche," Wardes said with a slight nod. His gaze returned to Soujiro. "Before our situation becomes more dangerous, I would like to familiarize myself with the abilities of everyone in the group. Would you care to join me for an informal duel?"

"Sure." He didn't have anything else planned for the day, and fighting mages was always surprising.

"Wonderful idea," Guiche said from behind. He used a finger-comb to brush his hair into place. "Afterwards, will you need to duel...the rest of us?"

Wardes looked at him. "You are an earth mage, correct?"

"Absolutely."

"Dot class?"

"Um, yes."

"That gives me a working idea of your abilities. There is, however, no working system to measure the skills of commoners."

"Oh," Guiche said. "Of course."

Wardes turned back to Soujiro. "Shall we be off?"

Soujiro smiled at him. "Sure."

WWW

As they made their way to the parade ground, Wardes glanced over his shoulder to make sure Soujiro was still there. The boy made no sound as he walked and Wardes could not hear his breath. Even worse, there was something faded about him, so whenever Wardes looked at him Soujiro seemed to blend into the background. It took him only an extra fraction of a second for his eyes to focus on the boy, but in a fight, a fraction of a second could kill.

Even if Wardes hadn't seen him move with ungodly speed that night at the palace, even if the boy didn't bear the mark of Gandalfr on his left hand, Wardes would would still see him as dangerous.

At least, he liked to think that. The truth was, if it weren't for the boys speed and his runes, Wardes wouldn't have noticed him at all.

"Here we are," he said as they reached the grounds. It had seen better days, but so had the known world. "You know, back when Tristain was at war with Albion during the reign of King Philip the Third, this entire inn was a castle. The king had real power and respect in those days, and the Nobility cared more for glory and prestige than wealth and comfort."

In his mind's eye, Wardes could imagine how it must have looked a century ago with the empty wine barrels and discarded crates replaced with flags and banners, creeping vines cut down, and dutiful knights instead of corpulent merchants. That was the curse of the historian, to feel nostalgic for an age he had never known.

"These days, though," he said, turning back to Soujiro, "no one fights duels for fame and honor." He studied the boy's face carefully, looking for the slightest change in expression. "Usually it's for something more boring, like two men fighting over a lover."

Nothing. Not even a flicker. Soujiro retained his same blank, unreadable smile. "You think that's more boring? At least you'd know if you've won. What if you're dueling for fame but no one's looking?"

Wardes frowned. Pragmatic. Cynical, even. Not what he had expected. Perhaps he was wrong. The night before, Louise had grown flustered whenever he had suggested that she might be romantically involved with her familiar, but she had grown flustered at nearly everything else as well.

"I've only been in one duel before this," Soujiro went on. He didn't draw his sword or adopt any swordstance Wardes recognized. He only stood straight, bouncing one foot off the ground. "So I'll let you say when it officially starts."

WWW

It took Soujiro an instant to take in his surroundings. The ground was soft, but not slippery. Not as firm as he'd have liked, but workable. There were boxes and barrels around them, but as long as he didn't trip over them he'd be fine. He'd need to watch out for those broken glass bottles, though. The stone wall behind Wardes looked promising if he needed the extra traction.

It took him another instant to come up with a plan. He hadn't fought enough mages to get a basic idea of their combat abilities. Would Wardes summon minions like Guiche had? Would he cast spells directly at Soujiro? Or would he do something different entirely? Soujiro didn't know, but when fighting an unpredictable opponent, the best thing to do was to go all out on the offensive so they wouldn't have the chance to surprise you.

Step One: Run around Wardes and jump off the wall, stopping behind him.

Step Two: Take his hat.

Step Three: Wear his hat.

Step Four: Look amazing.

Afterwards, Soujiro could fight the man from a position of unadulterated style, assuming that Wardes didn't yield on the spot.

"Calm yourself," Wardes said. "Even with an informal duel, there is still protocol to be followed. We cannot begin until the witness arrives."

 _Figures._ He relaxed a bit until he saw Louise come around the corner. "Good morning, Miss Louise."

"Hey, Soujiro," she muttered, squinting in the morning sunlight. She seemed tired, like she hadn't slept well, but she was often like that in the morning. "Well Wardes, you asked me to come and I..." She looked around as though seeing them for the first time. "What's going on here?"

"We're having a duel!" Soujiro explained.

" _What_?" she exclaimed. "Again? _Why_?"

"He asked me to."

"But...but..." She slammed the palm of her hand into her forehead. "Founder, I don't know how you keep on getting into these messes." She turned to Wardes. "I don't know what he did to offend you, but I promise you he didn't mean it. He just has a knack for saying exactly the wrong thing at any situation–it's really quite phenomenal. But whatever it was, I ask that you overlook it."

Wardes turned from her and looked at Soujiro straight in the eyes with his sword wand out. "Well, Gandalfr, the witness has arrived and the duel has begun."

"What?" Louise waved her arms out and stepped in between them. "No! Are you listening to me? It has _not_ begun! Soujiro, I absolutely forbid you from dueling him!"

"Okay," Soujiro said.

"I mean it! I...what?"

"I said okay," he said. "You don't want me to duel him, so I won't. I still want that hat though–I mean, I didn't say anything."

Louise blinked. "Oh. Good."

Wardes stared at him. "That's it? Do you have no desire to prove yourself?"

That nonsense again? Did he _seem_ fictional? "None at all," Soujiro replied. "And I don't know how well you understand our relationship, but Miss Louise kind of _owns_ me." He smiled at him. "But I'm sure you'll learn all about that after you two get married."

Wardes frowned. "I see I have misjudged you."

"Likewise, Mr. Wardes. On the bright side, now I have the rest of the trip to figure out why you wanted Miss Louise to see you beat me up."

Louise looked from him to Wardes. "What? _What?_ " Had she not figured it out? It seemed pretty obvious. Even if a witness really was necessary–which he doubted–Soujiro could think of at least three people who would have been more neutral.

"Perhaps," Wardes admitted. "But if I am forbidden to fight you with magic, then I will use words. Louise deserves better than a bastard assassin like yourself."

Soujiro's eyes widened. "Wow! How'd you know that?"

"Know what?" Wardes said. "That you're an assassin? You told everyone that, two nights ago in the palace."

"I did say I was an assassin," Soujiro said. "But I never said anything about being a bastard."

Wardes blinked, for the first time seeming caught off guard. "You mean you're literally...I just meant it as a generic insult, like, 'You're face is ugly,' or, 'You're mother was a whore.'"

Soujiro gasped. "You did it again!"

Wardes's eyes narrowed. "You're joking."

"No, I'm dead serious. Have you been speaking with my relatives? Because when I was growing up, that was all they would ever talk about. _Every_ day they went on about how my whore mother left them a dirty bastard to deal with." He chuckled. "Trust me, it got old _fast._ " They were all dead, but that hadn't stopped Mr. Shishio from dropping by to visit.

Wardes glared at him for a long moment. "Very well, bastard." He seemed to dislike that word, as though it tasted bitter in his mouth. " _Assassin._ " He liked that one even less. "Answer me this: did you murder Count Mott?"

Soujiro grinned, thoroughly impressed. "Incredible. _Three_ out of _three_!"

WWW

Louise felt her jaw drop as she stared at her familiar. The dirty secrets about his parentage didn't bother her. Much. Really, compared to a noble, there wasn't much difference between a beggar and a merchant so being an illegitimate commoner was only barely worse than being a legitimate one.

Besides, Louise was hardly prejudiced about that sort of thing. The Valliére line originated when Lady Margaret became romantically involved with King Ragnar the Second. More recently, Tabitha's common name and lack of surname hinted at a dishonorable parentage, but no one at the academy bothered her about that, anymore.

But...he murdered Count Mott? Why? What was wrong with him? Didn't he understand that as his master, she was responsible for him? Didn't he understand how much trouble his random acts of violence could get _both_ of them into?

If word got out, they could both be tried for murder. Beyond that, she didn't know. Familiars had never gone to trial before, but most of them were animals, no more responsible for their master's actions than a horse if its rider trampled a pedestrian.

Familiars could still be executed, though. You couldn't take a creature trained and bound to protect its master and then expect it to sit quietly as said master hung by a noose.

In fact, it was assumed that if a familiar killed someone, it was because its master ordered it. Familiars were famously obedient, and it was a mark of shame for a mage if a familiar even failed to use the litter box properly. In fact, it was a grave insult to Louise on Wardes's part to assume that Soujiro had been acting on his own, even if it was true.

She decided to let it slide.

"His death always disturbed me," Wardes said, not taking his eyes off of Soujiro. "The method was the same, a man found killed at the hand of an unseen swordsman, but the rest of the victims were killed in the palace, and Mott was killed in his own manor. If the point of those deaths was to draw attention to the palace in preparation for the murder of Cardinal Mazarin, then why would the assassin travel all the way to Count Mott's manor? The only conclusion I could draw was that Mott had been killed by someone with the same skills and training as the palace assassin, but _not_ by him." His eyes narrowed. "That left you."

Throughout the entire accusation, Soujiro's serene smile never left his face, and that disturbed Louise as much as knowing that he had randomly murdered a member of Tristain's nobility. She had seen more remorse from children caught stealing cookies. After Wardes finished, Soujiro began to _applaud_ , quick and light, a soft tapping between his palms.

"I hadn't thought I had left any incriminating evidence that night, Mr. Wardes," Soujiro replied cheerfully. "But I see the Princess's trust in you was well placed."

Wardes turned to face Louise, but his eyes never left her familiar. " _This_ is the creature whom you have trusted and kept by your side all this time, Louise. You don't deserve this. You deserve more than an _honorless assassin._ "

He left the square, never looking at her, never taking his eyes off of Soujiro. Soujiro smiled at him as he walked away, then turned towards her. "Well, that was interesting."

" _Interesting?_ Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Absolutely."

 _No remorse._ She had been too lax with her familiar. She needed to _discipline_ him, she...she could get killed that way. And it wasn't like she had ever _ordered_ him not to kill Mott, although she did remember talking to him about the man the night before he died. What had brought that up? She couldn't remember. But what mattered was that Soujiro had never disobeyed her, not in anything. Was that another strange quirk in her familiar? No, it was probably part of the Familiar Contract itself. He could act on his own, but he could _not_ disobey her. She hoped.

"Soujiro," she said as imperiously as she could. "When we get back from our mission, you will tell the Princess _exactly_ what you've done and you will face her justice." Which would be merciful, and if the mission was successful, then the Princess would be able to justify offering them a pardon.

"Okay." _Could_ he refuse? If he couldn't, then Louise really was responsible for Mott's death, if only out of negligence. Founder, did other mages have to deal with this sort of thing? Did Kirche have to tell her salamander not to burn the curtains? Did Tabitha have to order her dragon not to eat people?

"And from now on, you are to kill _no one_ unless I tell you to. Understood?"

He smiled the same blank, empty smile he always did. "Absolutely."

Well, she'd see. Founder, she could use a glass of wine right now, and it wasn't even noon. She turned and started to walk back towards the inn when she felt someone watching her. She stopped dead in her tracks as a chill ran up her spine under the pressure of an unknown gaze. Louise spun around and saw...her familiar with the same blank-faced expression as always.

 _Founder,_ she thought, heading back to the inn, _I need a drink._

WWW

After Louise left, Soujiro stood alone on the grass. _No. Not alone._

"Mr. Derflinger, have I ever told you the first rule of the _hitokiri_?"

"Not that I can recall, Partner," Derflinger replied from his sheath at Soujiro's waist.

"Never kill someone you want to kill. A manslayer never works for himself; when he does, he starts messing up. So when someone orders you to kill someone, you do it. But when you find someone that _you_ want to kill, then you might decide to savor the moment, or give him a fighting chance, or _something_ other than going for the kill." He thought back to his fight with Mr. Himura. Soujiro hadn't wanted to just do his job; he wanted to defeat the Battousai's world view and prove that the sword that protects the weak was nothing more than a bad joke. "And then you lose."

"So you just...hire other people to kill your enemies?" Derflinger asked. "Seems a tad impersonal, doesn't it?"

Soujiro shrugged. "If it works, does it matter? That's one of the reasons why Mr. Shishio worked through others instead of killing everyone himself." That had played as much of a role as his medical condition. He _loved_ fighting, so he had other people do it instead. "Because when he no longer had a master telling him whom he should and should not kill, he had stopped being a _hitokiri_."

"So him making his own kills proves that he really is working for someone else?" Derflinger asked.

"Well, yeah." Soujiro had _assumed_ that Mr. Shishio was telling the truth; hiding behind lies was a mark of weakness. "But more importantly, I had thought that I, too, had stopped being a _hitokiri_."

Derflinger paused. "Haven't you? I mean, you're a familiar now, with a new name and everything."

"And orders to kill only whom my master tells me." He smiled. "That seems pretty manslayer-ish, doesn't it?"

"Huh. Well, so what? I mean, there's no rule that says that you can't be a manslayer _and_ a familiar, is there?"

"No," Soujiro admitted. "But can I be a familiar and a _rurouni_?" The last part was something he owed himself. Becoming a wanderer was the first _choice_ he had made in...years. But over the past few weeks, he had fallen into the familiar role of a servant, and he had forgotten what he had chosen to become.

" _After spending all your days a servant, it would be a shame if you died without ever tasting freedom."_ Mr. Shishio's words. They had a way of sticking in his head.

"I don't know," Derflinger said. "This may surprise you, but not a whole lot of my past partners ask me for advice about this sort of thing. Usually it's more of a, 'Hey, Derf! Do you think we can handle these guys, or should we run away?' And I'll say, 'Go get'em, Leeroy!' But if you ask me, I'd say stay. I mean, as long as you're her familiar, you're _Gandalfr_! Gandalfr! You gotta admit, that's pretty cool."

"I've never needed to be Gandalfr before." He hadn't even known what that was until a few days ago. "And if I leave..." _I'll be me._

Derflinger sighed. "Well, if you're really serious about his, fine. But don't leave yet. I mean, come on, it would be rude! Everyone's counting on you, Partner, they _already_ bought your ticket for the trip to Albion...afterwards, sure, why not? When you get back from the mission, go ahead and put in your two weeks notice...just not until then."

Soujiro considered that. "Sure." He wasn't in any hurry. Besides, he had ten years of wandering to get done. He could put it off for another month.

WWW

A/n Does Soujiro remind anyone else of Teatime from The Hogfather? No? Just me? Okay.

Well, I got a long serious chapter to balance out the short funny one last time, and the next one is going to have Tabitha in it, doing something...like reading, if I get that far. Or maybe they'll spend all of next chapter playing card games. I mean, they have the day off, right?

I figured that Louise wouldn't remember word for word her conversation with Soujiro about Mott. I mean, that was _chapters_ ago, and she didn't really start being paranoid about him until after she found out he was an assassin. Besides, she had other things on her mind.

Just in case you've forgotten, hitokiri means manslayer, and rurouni means wanderer. I always hate it when half the story I'm reading is in Japanese with words sprinkled in it like hai and gomen and suffixes everywhere that no one understands as well as they think they do, but rurouni was (I think) practically invented by the Rouroni Kenshin writer, and a hitokiri is a very specific type of assassin, which is why they often used the word manslayer instead.

Anyway, thank you again for all the wonderful reviews I've gotten from you wonderful people. Keep being wonderful!


	9. Chapter 9

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Nine

"Strength before weakness."  
–The Stormlight Archive

Soujiro returned to the inn with a smile on his face. In the beginning he had smiled because there was nothing else he could do, then out of habit, and now … now he didn't know why.

Everyone in the group was present on the ground floor. He checked them off mentally. Louise, Wardes, Guiche, Kirche, Tabitha. Louise and Wardes sat at a table together. Louise looked up at him and looked away quickly. Wardes looked at him and his gaze didn't shift.

Kirche, Guiche, and Tabitha sat at another table, Tabitha reading a book, and the others with half empty glasses and a bottle of wine. "Hey, Soujiro's back!" Kirche said, noticing him. "We can have even teams now!"

Soujiro approached them, but he didn't sit down. "Teams for what?"

"Teams for games to kill time," Kirche said. "It turns out that this quaint little town is also dead boring, so we're going to have to make our own fun." She smiled at him meaningfully–meaningfully in that she seemed to mean something by it, even if the meaning was lost on him.

"Neat! What game are we playing?"

"We were just about to decide, cutey," Kirche said. She motioned toward a chair next to her. "Have a seat while we work things out." He sat down and Kirche put an arm around him. Louise turned away and gripped her wineglass more firmly than before. "I'm thinking something along the lines of spin the bottle, truth or dare … _strip poker_."

Guiche fainted, falling out of his chair. "Is he okay?" Soujiro asked. He must have had too much to drink. And so early in the day, too.

"Oh, don't worry about him," Kirche said. "We can play without him."

"You can play without me, too," Louise called from her table. "And before you come up with an even _worse_ game idea, I'm just going to come out and say that I'm not going to play _anything_ you come up with."

Kirche rolled her eyes and shot Soujiro a smile. "That's just nature's way of telling you that you haven't had enough to drink yet."

Louise scoffed at that. "Please, Kirche. If I _were_ drunk enough for that, I wouldn't be conscious."

"I'd be fine with that," Kirche replied.

"And that goes double for my fiancé _and_ my familiar!"

Soujiro looked at Wardes and smiled at their shared situation, but Wardes glowered at him in return. Fun guy. He was like how Soujiro imagined that the police officer Saito would have been if they had gotten to know each other better, only with a cooler hat.

"Are you ever planning on _not_ monopolizing all the guys?" Kirche asked. "Because I would love to mark _that_ on my calendar."

"Is it okay if I pick the game then?" Soujiro asked. He always liked games, and would sometimes play Go with Miss Yumi when he wasn't out on missions, even though he never won. Everyone was looking at him except for Tabitha (who was reading) and Guiche (who was unconscious), so he kept talking.

"There was a game that my last master, Mr. Shishio taught me." Louise wrinkled her nose at that and glanced down. Was she jealous or something? Well, that made sense. Not everyone could be Mr. Shishio. "It's called Dodge. You take twenty archers, line them up, and–"

"Where are we going to get twenty archers?" Kirche asked.

Soujiro shrugged. "Maybe there's an archery range where we can borrow some? Where do you usually get archers when you need them?"

"I've never needed archers before," Kirche admitted. "But go on. I don't know _where_ you're going with this, but I like the way your lips move."

"So you take these archers, line them up, and –"

The main door of the inn burst open and in walked a man in a suit of armor–carrying a _bow_! And it was huge, too, at least twice as long as the bows they had in Japan. Soujiro always assumed that archers avoided armor so they could feel the wind better, but maybe they did things differently in Halkeginia. And with the bows and arrows so much bigger, maybe a little thing like the wind didn't matter as much.

Behind the man came another man in a matching suit of armor carrying a matching longbow, and then another man, and then another. Soujiro didn't count all of them, but there had to be at least twenty.

He stood up. "Perfect! Maybe we could ask them to …"

The innkeeper, a fat man who had tried to conceal the bald spot on his head by rearranging his remaining hair, approached the archers. Soujiro didn't catch what he said, but he sounded angry.

Then the front archer knocked an arrow in his bow, pointed it at the innkeeper, and drew it back.

The innkeeper stepped back, a look of surprise, fear, and even betrayal crossing his features. _If you're weak …_

 _If you're strong_ … and the archer released, and the arrow flew through the weak man's chest and into the wall behind him. The innkeeper looked down, confused, as his white shirt turned red.

Louise screamed, and Wardes kicked his table over to use as a barricade and yelled at the others to do the same. Tabitha closed her book.

"On second thought, nevermind," Soujiro said with a smile. "Those guys look busy." And it didn't look like they were going to have time for games anyway.

The rest of the group, including Guiche who had woken up, huddled behind the tables as the archers killed everyone else who wasn't quick enough to find cover. Soujiro sat back down on his chair and watched.

"Soujiro!" Louise hissed.

Soujiro tilted his head to the side to avoid an arrow. It wasn't the first one that was aimed at him, but it was the first one that he had needed to dodge. "Yes, Miss Louise?" He didn't look at her when he spoke. He hoped she wouldn't take it as a sign of disrespect, but the archers demanded his attention.

"Get over here!"

"Sure thing." He darted over to her table. "What do you need?"

"I need you to not _die_ as we figure out what to do!"

Part of Soujiro wanted to point out that not dying had been exactly what he had been doing, and indeed what he had done throughout his entire life, but it didn't seem like the right time.

"It is too much of a coincidence to take them for common robbers," Wardes said. He peaked around the edge of the table, but pulled back as an arrow glanced by him. "If they are a group of mercenaries hired by the Reconquista, then they'll have a main force waiting for us to use up our magic on the expandable front liners."

"But how would they even know about us?" Louise asked, curled up next to him.

"Questions for a less perilous time, my dear," Wardes replied. "Whatever the case, it would be unwise to engage them directly, if possible."

"You know," Soujiro said thoughtfully. "Arrows run out just as much as magic does."

Wardes narrowed his eyes at him. "What's your point, boy?"

 _That swords are better._ "My point is that I was telling everyone about a game I used to play earlier. It goes like this."

He jumped out from behind the table and into plain sight of the archers. "Hey, look at me! I'm a target!"

The archers rained arrows down on his position, so he changed his position and sidestepped the arrows. Only a few of the archers had bad enough aim to miss him by five feet, and those arrows were far enough apart to stand between.

If they were smart, they'd start to shoot in volleys and scatter their shots more. Soujiro would need to draw Derflinger to block soon. It had been too long since he had practiced catching arrows in flight, and those arrows had been much smaller. Or maybe he could get close enough to cut their bows? Louise had forbidden him from killing anyone, but …

"Soujiro!" Louise shrieked. "Get back here!"

 _What now?_ He darted back to behind the table. "Yes, Miss–"

"You _idiot_!" And she hit him.

But she wasn't her anymore, and Soujiro was no longer there, if only for a moment.

He was back in the home he grew up in, and a child once more. He may have left when he was seven, but he _did_ grow up there, far more than he had ever wanted to.

A half empty jug of _saké_ smashed into his head, shattering. _If you're strong …_ A sheathed sword across his face. _If you're weak …_

A sword drawn, reflecting the distant lightning from the coming storm. " _It shouldn't matter much if we kill him."_

… _you die._

 _Die._

 _Die._

 _Die!_

"Try not to die, will you?" Louise said, and once more he was back at the inn.

Soujiro rubbed his head where she had hit him. Mr. Shishio had taught him to kill, but he had _never_ hit him. "Yeah, sorry about that, Miss Louise."

Wardes eyed him cautiously, and Soujiro smiled at him in return. "Anyway, I suspect that the mercenaries will have blocked all the exits, so we'll just have to make a new one," Wardes said. He turned to the other table with Kirche, Guiche, and Tabitha. "Would some of you care to facilitate a distraction?"

Kirche peered around the edge of her table. "For you, handsome, I'd facilitate anything, but we're as pinned down as you are."

"Fire." Tabitha said that. That was possibly the first time Soujiro had heard her speak.

"That would be great," Kirche said, "but until our friends over there stop shooting at us, I won't be able to get more than a few sparks off in their direction."

Tabitha waved her staff. "Oil." A pot of oil floated out of the kitchen and upturned itself over the mercenaries.

Kirche grinned. "And that's why everybody loves you. _Ignite!_ " The oil burst into flame, and the mercenaries' armor did nothing to keep out the heat as they burned.

"That was … surprisingly effective," Wardes said. The arrows stopped falling. "Now we just need to–"

" _Yes_!" It was a new voice, coming from the direction of the burning men. "The _smell_! The charred _meat_! I must have more! There must _be more_!"

Wardes pointed his sword wand at the wall. " _Air Hammer_!" he said, blasting a hole through it.

The newcomer cast a spell of his own. " _Inferno_!"

Wardes flew out the hole with Louise at his arm–literally flew, which seemed to be faster for him than running–and Kirche, Guiche, and Tabitha were only a moment behind him.

Soujiro, though, saw the opportunity to study an enemy's attack and took it.

The enemy himself was tall and thick around the arms and shoulders. He wore a cape like all mages seemed to, though his was frayed and scorched. His tan skin was covered in scars, especially around his face. He had short, white hair, a square jaw, and a metallic eye patch covered his right eye that seemed to be stapled to his face.

Of course, when it came to burn scars, the man had nothing on Mr. Shishio.

The flames started above his head from a massive iron mace that looked like it could smash as easily as cast spells, and they spiraled outward as they fell like an inverted tornado. Fire enveloped the tables, the chairs, the screaming mercenaries as their armor flared white.

Before the flames reached him, he turned to run and got out of the inn just as the outer walls exploded. Fortunately, the blasted stones and burning wood moved even slower than the flames, and Soujiro could outrun those easily.

"It's time to make some hard decisions," Wardes said. He walked briskly, cautiously away from the burning ruins of the inn. "If the Reconquista has already discovered our movements, and we have no choice but to assume that they have, then we lack the resources to face every challenge they throw at us. We'll need to split into two groups, one to make a mad dash for the objective, and the other to delay our enemies."

"Bait," Tabitha interpreted.

"I prefer the term 'distraction,'" Wardes said. "Louise absolutely must reach Albion."

"But I …" Louise started. "You're right." She didn't look like she appreciated her vital nature, which Soujiro didn't understand. Being in the "important to be kept alive" category was the best place someone could be.

Wardes nodded. "And of course I–"

"I found you!"

Wardes looked over his shoulder at the mage with a fondness for burning people and who seemed happy to see them. "Good luck." He grabbed Louise and shot into the air like an arrow.

"Lucky," Soujiro said as he watched them go. "I wish I could fly."

"Move!" Kirche yelled as the rest of them darted behind a building.

Soujiro looked behind him and saw another fire spell coming towards him, but it was different from the first one. Instead of the spiral pattern, this one looked more like a wall of flame that spread across the width of the street and was twenty feet high, rushing towards him. He could have jumped over it, but he didn't know how deep it was, and the ground it passed over was probably too hot to be fun, so he followed the others.

"Okay," Kirche said. "I like a guy who's willing to live dangerously, and is not currently wetting himself–" She shot a glance at Guiche. "–but that was cutting it a bit too close, don't you think?"

Soujiro blinked. "Um, okay."

Kirche smiled. "Well, Tabitha, I promised you hot guys, and if that psycho is less than a square-class fire mage, I'll join a nunnery."

"Not funny," Tabitha said.

"Yeah, you're right. I'd make a terrible nun. So, any ideas?"

Tabitha paused for a moment. "Double-sided attack."

Kirche nodded. "Sounds good. Do you want front or back?"

"Back." Tabitha shot into the air, not as fast as Wardes, Soujiro noted, but still pretty fast.

"Sorry," Guiche said. "But what's going on?"

"Oh, right," Kirche replied. "Tabitha is circling around back, and the two of us are going to attack him at the same time, and hopefully he won't be able to block both of us."

"I see," Guiche said. "And what will the rest of us be doing?"

"Um, since you're a dot mage, and you're not a mage at all … why don't you two just stay here and look pretty?"

Guiche puffed out his chest a bit. "This is the job I was born for!"

Kirche flew away, leaving Soujiro alone with Guiche. That made sense. Soujiro didn't know either of the girls well, but they seemed like they were used to working together. Still, the whole situation seemed off somehow.

"Hey, Mr. Guiche? Do you ever feel like you're on the wrong side?

"What? That's ridiculous! Soujiro my boy, we are on a mission for the _Princess_! What better side could there be?"

"People we don't know are trying to kill us," Soujiro explained. "My last boss sometimes said that it's always better to be on the side where you're trying to kill people you don't know."

Guiche frowned. "Were you a soldier before?" He shook his head. "No, that sounds more like a mercenary."

Soujiro smiled, not answering. "Well, you can stay here if you want, Mr. Guiche, but I'm going to go out and change my side."

"What? Hold on, you don't mean that you–"

Soujiro stepped out from behind the alley where they had been hiding … and into a burning world. People who had a preference for thatch roofing quickly realized just how flammable straw was, and the streets were scattered with panicked townsfolk looking for help, safety, or water.

All the chaos made it easy to pick out the enemy, standing, as it were, in the eye of the storm. Around him, instead of screaming, running men and women, there was silence and charred corpses. Soujiro arrived just in time to watch Kirche and Tabitha attack the man, Tabitha in the distance behind a stone tower and Kirche standing on a nearby wall. They cast their spells, a blast of flame from Kirche and a slew of icicles from Tabitha. Both attacks were swallowed up by the man's _Inferno_.

And then came the counter attack.

A pair of flaming eagles sprouted from the tip of the man's mace and soared screaming towards the girls. Tabitha managed to dodge her eagle as it exploded against the watchtower, but Kirche tried to block it with a fire spell of her own.

And then she screamed.

She fell from the wall, clutching her arm where her sleeve had burnt off entirely, her wand nowhere in sight. Her cry drew the man towards her like a wolf towards a wounded deer. He flew through the air and landed next to her, but before finishing her off, he … stopped to savor the moment.

And that moment was all Soujiro needed. He moved and stopped between the two of them, and he smiled. "Hey, Mister, I hate to interrupt you while you're working, but I never got your name."

Having strangers trying to kill you is a sign that you're on the wrong side. It was always better when it was someone you knew who was trying to kill you. Some old Chinese guy that Mr. Shishio had read about, Sun Tzu or something, talked about that sort of thing a lot.

The man didn't look at him. He just stared ahead with his one unmoving, unblinking eye. "Who the devil are you?"

Soujiro smiled again. "Oh, I'm sorry, that was rude of me. My name is Seta Soujiro." He glanced around at the burning buildings. It looked like his flying friend, Henya had passed through, whose many good qualities didn't include subtlety. "And I must say, you really know how to make a first impression!"

"Soujiro," he repeated. "The Tenken?" He grinned like a man not too concerned with feigning sanity. "God warned me about you."

God? Well, Soujiro only knew of one person who called him Tenken. "You know Mr. Shishio?"

" _Yes_!" he said fervently. "I met Him, heard His voice, felt His presence. To one like me who sees heat instead of light, it was as if the blazing sun descended to the earth and wrapped Himself in flesh and fire." He closed his eye (his blind eye?) as the memory faded. "But in response to your question, Soujiro the Fallen, my name is Menneville." He raised his mace and Soujiro heard Kirche rising to her feet behind him. About time. "God, may He burn eternal, told me to kill you."

Soujiro grabbed Kirche around the waist and pulled her out of the way, which was a distance of several buildings when one took Menneville's fondness for spells with large areas of effect. He didn't know if there was going to be much of a town when they were done, but protecting the town was never their objective; distracting Menneville was.

Soujiro imagined that Menneville would be pretty distracted if his head fell off his shoulders, but Louise had been rather firm about whom he was and was not allowed to kill, and the friendly neighborhood pyromaniac wasn't on the list.

 _A sword that protects the weak..._

He never _had_ gotten the hang of that philosophy.

"What the …" Kirche said after he set her down back in the alley with Guiche. "How did you _do_ that?"

He shrugged. "I just put one foot in front of the other. You've seen me do it before."

"Trust me, there is a world of difference between seeing and feeling." She managed to wink at him before she winced. "Founder, if I knew that third degree burns were going to be involved, I would have stayed at home."

"By the way," Guiche said. "I'm assuming that the plan didn't work out, so I'm not going to embarrass you by asking about it, but how did your hair not catch on fire when your arm was burned?"

Kirche rolled her eyes. "I use fire-proof conditioner. It takes too long to grow my hair out like this to loose it to a spell gone awry."

Guiche's eyes lit up. "Do you have more?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Why? Are you two planning on rubbing each other down with it?"

"Um, I would not have phrased it thus, but …"

"I don't. And even if I did, you'd just boil instead of burn. Not much of an improvement. No, I am willing to admit that we are all in over our pretty little heads, and we need to get out of this place while it's still only– _argh_ , my freaking arm!–only a figurative hell hole and the maniac's lake of fire isn't done yet."

Guiche gasped. "Run away? But that would dishonor us in front of the Princess!"

"If you want to go and get extra crispy, be my guest," Kirche replied. "I'll be sure to send Her Highness what I can find of your ashes. As for me, as soon as Tabitha gets back, I'm jumping onto her dragon and flying straight home where I have a nice bottle of burn ointment waiting for me."

Just then, Tabitha returned. There was no fanfare, no ostentatious comment to announce her presence. Soujiro respected that. He respected anyone who could drop out of the sky subtly.

"Information?" she asked.

"And speak of the Tabitha!" Kirche said. "We need to get out of here before Mr. Hot-in-a-Bad-Way runs out of city to burn."

"Information?" Tabitha asked again.

"What, about _him_?" Kirche asked. "He's out of our league, and if Wardes wanted us to distract him more than we already have, then he should have given me a kiss for good luck."

"He's blind," Soujiro said. "He said that he sees heat instead of light."

Kind of like Usui, also blind, but with hearing so sensitive he could practically _see_ sound. Soujiro remembered one time when Usui fought Mr. Shishio when the latter wasn't in the mood to humor him. Mr. Shishio slammed his sword against the floor and the clang disorientated him for the split second it took for Mr. Shishio to end the fight. There was an expression that he was fond of. How did it go again?

" _Every strength is a weakness, kid. You just need to know how to use it."_

"Maybe we could blind his other senses with a flash of heat?" Soujiro suggested. "But considering the fire he's been throwing around …" He shook his head. "Nevermind. Bad idea." Picking out the weakness behind the strength was something that he had never been able to figure out. "Menneville–that's his name, by the way–he's also working for my old boss." And had been in contact with him at some point over the past two days, Soujiro realized.

"Right," Kirche said. "I was kind of distracted when you two were chatting, but your old boss … is that the guy the maniac referred to as God?"

Soujiro nodded. "Yup."

"And … that doesn't strike you as odd?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Mr. Shishio is very charismatic." And Mr. Shishio always had a way of attracting freaks and monsters.

Guiche snapped his fingers. "I've got it! If he sees his enemies by body heat, then a construct with no body heat at all should be invisible to him!" He waved his wand, shaking petals off his rose that turned into suits of armor. "Go my Valkyries! Show the evildoers what it means to challenge the House Gramont!"

The suits of armor floated into the air in exactly the same way bricks didn't, and then were engulfed in fire and were reduced to floating, and then falling, piles of slag.

"What?" Guiche demanded. "How?"

"Specific heat capacity of metal," Tabitha said.

Guiche blinked. "I … know what all of those words mean individually."

"Together," Kirche explained, "they mean that your plan accomplished nothing at all."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Soujiro said. "I'm pretty sure those Valkyrie things gave away our position."

Guiche's face fell. "So … I suppose we should be leaving now."

Tabitha put her fingers in her mouth and whistled, a shrill noise that would have brought Usui to his knees. Her big blue dragon Sylphid arrived, sticking its serpentine neck into the alley. "Kyuu?"

With only one working arm and no wand, Kirche needed Tabitha to levitate her onto Sylphid's back, and Guiche floated up after her. Soujiro hesitated. Wardes had told them to distract Menneville who seemed singlemindedly focused on wanton destruction … but Wardes was not the boss of him, and Louise had been rather silent on the topic.

Besides, Soujiro had always wanted to fly, ever since he had seen Henya do it. He hopped onto Sylphid behind Guiche.

"Take them home," Tabitha said, still on the ground.

"Kyuu!"

"Aren't you coming with us?" Kirche demanded.

Tabitha shook her head. "Enemy."

" _What_? You can't be serious! If both of us together couldn't face him, what makes you think you can handle him alone?"

"Plan."

Sylphid backed out of the alley, spread its wings, and flew, while Tabitha remained behind.

WWW

 _Plan_ was a mild exaggeration, used to calm Kirche's (hopefully) unnecessary worries. There was a spell that Tabitha had never used before, had never thought that she would need to use, and had only memorized because she had been interested in the theory.

Self-induced hypothermia had so few practical applications.

One part wind, one part water. " _Cold Blood._ "

The effect was instantaneous and nearly sent her into shock. Her arms and legs didn't feel much different, but her chest felt like she had drunk a gallon of ice water and a headache hit her like her skull had contracted more tightly around her brain.

It wasn't even a cold day, late summer, but the human body could be exceptionally picky when it came to homeostasis. Tabitha didn't know how long it would take for the spell to kill her–testing the life expectancy of hypothermia victims was generally frowned upon–but she would have enough time to kill one blind pyromancer.

She took to the air and found the man–Menneville, Soujiro had called him–meandering towards their alley. He lacked focus, stopping to ignite nearby buildings that hadn't yet caught fire. Fortunately, all of the inhabitants had already fled. _Hopefully_ , all of the inhabitants had already fled, otherwise she'd be honorbound to help them, which she could not afford to do. She took her chivalric oaths more seriously than most knights, who seemed to be one part performance and two parts presentation. She hadn't decided what she thought of Wardes yet. He had run away, abandoning them to fight Menneville on their own which made sense logically and made him look bad, so that was already two points in his favor.

She flew closer to Menneville. She was faster than him, in theory. Flight was a wind spell, and she was a triangle-class wind mage, so unless Menneville had a strong secondary wind specialty, she'd be fine. Unless hypothermia killed her first.

 _Between fire and ice, which will catch me?_

He didn't seem to notice her. Even when she floated in front of him...

He froze. His one eye didn't follow her, so he really was blind, but he seemed to know that someone was there. He … tilted his head slightly. Like a lizard. She had read about that behavior. It had something to do with repositioning the ears to better triangulate sources of sound. She floated away slowly, making less noise than a breeze, and landed on a nearby rooftop.

She could only cast one spell at a time, which meant that she couldn't fight and fly simultaneously. Long lasting spells, like Cold Blood, could be maintained in flight, but for anything else, she needed to land first.

On the rooftop, she mouthed the incantation of a spell as Menneville continued on beneath her, still unaware. She gathered, condensed, and froze the water in the air, forming an icicle above her head, when her plan fell apart.

Menneville spun around, raising his mace, a look of panic in his eye as he cast a counterspell, and Tabitha thought, _Of course. If he can sense heat, he can sense cold._ It was rather unfortunate that she didn't know any temperature-neutral offensive spells.

Menneville's blast of fire was focused on the icicle, not her, giving Tabitha enough time to get out of the way.

"Clever little thing, aren't you?" he said. He spoke loudly, as though he still didn't know where she was. "I wonder how you'll burn?"

 _You'll likely not find out,"_ Tabitha thought. She was already starting to feel sluggish and drowsy, and if she died of hypothermia, her corpse would remain the same temperature as her environment, invisible to him.

It wasn't much of a consolation, but it was better than nothing. _You burned my book, you burned my friend, but you won't burn me._

She tried to think of a backup plan, possibly something involving braining him with her staff, but her brain didn't function quite as well at room temperature.

And that was when Soujiro showed up.

Menneville shot a blast of fire at him before he had a chance to speak, which missed entirely. The boy was fast. Tabitha respected that. Speed beat strength more often than not. Her uncle was unfortunately living proof of that.

Still, she didn't like working with strangers. She was shy, a trait that had more to do with trust than with fear. Tabitha knew Kirche well enough to work with her, not because she knew that Kirche would never let her down–to believe anyone to be infallible was to invite disaster–but because she knew that Kirche would fail her predictably. Louise's familiar Soujiro, though, _he_ was an unknown quality.

But all of that was irrelevant, because she had no choice in the matter except how to respond to it.

"Do you wish to die, boy?" Menneville demanded. "Do you wish to _burn_?"

"No, but thanks for offering," Soujiro replied. "I just dropped by to ask how Mr. Shishio was doing. You seem to be friends with him, and I've only seen him once since he died."

 _Died?_ A puzzle that Tabitha didn't have time for. She conjured another icicle far away from her. Menneville incinerated it, as well as everything nearby. And then he _sniffed_ the air, as though checking to see if he could catch her scent. He scowled, and threw another blast of fire at Soujiro. "You will not mock the name of God!"

"Why not?" he asked, as though he were at a dinner party instead of a deathmatch. "He has enough of a sense of humor. By the way, does he still send his most annoying minions on pointless suicide missions?"

"Shut- _up_ , brat!" Another wall of fire burned out a section of the city, but even a square-class mage couldn't keep up that level of firepower indefinitely, and after he was out of willpower, Menneville would just be a large man with a mace. Was that Soujiro's plan? She didn't know him well enough to say, and she didn't know anything about the man whom he called Shishio and Menneville called God, but it seemed to be getting under his skin.

"My friend, Cho," Soujiro continued, on the opposite side of him, "whenever he went out on a mission, the rest of us would bet on whether or not he'd come back alive. I bet against him every time, and every time, he lived! And then this one time when he wasn't on a mission at all and just wandered off to harass a swordsmith's son, and of course he would run into a legendary manslayer." He threw up his arms in exasperation. "Really, what can you do?"

"You can _die_!" He raised his mace to cast a spell, and as soon as the fire formed, Tabitha threw an icicle at him from behind. His fireball twisted in mid air, arced around, shattered her icicle, and exploded on the spot where Soujiro no longer stood.

"Yeah, I figured you'd say that," Soujiro said, sounding bored. He gestured toward an empty building opposite of Tabitha. "What do you think, Miss Tabitha? Does any of this make sense to you?"

Menneville shot a series of blasts at the empty building, reducing it to rubble.

And Soujiro laughed. "Man, I can't believe you _fell_ for that! Sorry, I'm sorry Mr. Menneville, I shouldn't laugh. Really, Henya couldn't have done a better job with demolition. You don't know him, but Henya was another friend of mine. He flew with dynamite and anorexia instead of magic. Do you have dynamite here? It blows up."

Menneville seemed tired, finally, and despite his passion that would make Kirche look stoic, he seemed to realize that his attacks weren't effective. And he grew cautious.

"I sparred with him once," Soujiro continued. "Ranking dispute, you know how it is. Henya took to the air, and I, being, you know, subject to gravity, dodged his explosions until he ran out of dynamite and had to come down. And let me tell you, that took _forever_. Afterwards, Mr. Shishio took me aside and told me that I should have–"

He vanished, reappearing on the other side of his opponent. But this time, his sword was out, with a light sheen of blood. "–cut the fuses off."

Menneville's arm fell off, hand still clutching his mace, severed at the elbow. His one eye opened wide and he screamed, more out of shock than pain.

"And as usual," Soujiro continued, still smiling, "Mr. Shishio's way was always better."

"No," Menneville said. He lunged for his mace, and Tabitha had less than a second to respond.

She didn't know why Soujiro cut off his arm instead of his head anymore than she understood why he spent so much time chatting when he seemed fast enough to end the fight in the beginning. Maybe he wanted to capture the man. But no matter how valuable a captive Menneville could be, they didn't have the resources to keep him. Guiche had used up all of his willpower, Kirche was injured and wandless, and Tabitha herself would be incapacitated for the next few days. And as Louise's familiar, Soujiro's main responsibility was on her way to Albion.

So she made the only logical choice.

She sent a series of icicles through his thoracic cavity. As he reached for his mace, she heard him say, "Burn! The world must BUR– _splurk."_

Those weren't the last words she would have chosen, but that was far from the worst decision Menneville had made that day.

WWW

Shishio stood over the corpse of one Walter von Wagner, whose midday nap had been interrupted by eternal sleep via a sword to the chest, when he felt something crack in his pocket.

There was nothing especially important about Wagner. He was a distant relative of the Germanian emperor, but he was third in line to the throne after the imperial family was thoroughly slaughtered, making him a mild–and now a solved–obstacle.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a locket, one of the many magical items he carried with him. It was a simple thing, a tiny sealed portrait on a gold chain, designed for long distance lovers who wanted to keep track of each other.

Most of Halkeginia was like that, as though the world had been formed by little girls and aged romantics. Anywhere on the continent, one could buy a love potion on the black market which could deprive its victim of any semblance of reason for nearly a year, and yet no one had ever thought to use it to hijack an army. Or a kingdom.

The locket was just like that. Across Halkeginia, young people exchanged them when they became engaged. The miniature portraits inside aged accordingly, so even if the arrangement had been made while the participants were children, they would still be able to recognize each other.

It also cracked when the person in the portrait died, which is why Shishio carried one for all his major agents.

An exceptionally strong mercenary he had picked up, Menneville, had just died, his image shattered in Shishio's hand. Unfortunate. Another one of Shishio's servants would procure and preserve his corpse for later, but still he couldn't help but appreciate the advantage of instantaneous information. Before his death, he would have needed to have been near a telegraph, and even those had their limits. Why no one else had seen the practical uses of these lockets, he could not imagine.

These people, this world … they were pretty. Not beautiful, just pretty, petty, and cheap, like flowers in the garden while the house was on fire. And if there was one reason why Shishio had been summoned to this silly little world, it was to deliver a message.

The house was always on fire.

WWW

A/n And here is yet another chapter. These things keep on appearing on my computer. I don't understand it, but until proven otherwise I'm going to blame keyboard gnomes. I would like to once again thank all the people out there who have left and who continue to leave reviews on this story. If it weren't for you, I would give up on fan fiction and go out to get a real job. Ha! Who am I kidding, I would just spend more time playing video games.

If it wasn't clear, Menneville was the guy who led the bad guys during the hostage situation and was later killed by Colbert. He only showed up during one episode, and I'm guessing you weren't paying too much attention to his name when that episode had a (temporary) character death, but since I haven't involved Fouquet yet, he seemed like a good choice.

Also, I have a beta now, and no longer need to carry the burden of proofreading on my own. See all the spelling and grammatical errors that aren't there? That's because of Croniklerx. Thank you, Croniklerx. You have made the world a better place.

Finally, I would like to announce that this story is now on TV Tropes! If you look under the Familiar of Zero fanfic recs, you will find a link that will take you back here. I don't know who put it up there, but I'm guessing that it's someone named Ghingahn. Thank you, Ghingahn. You have made my dreams come true. I love it when people do that for me.


	10. Chapter 10

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Ten

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."  
-Oscar Wilde

As soon as Tabitha finished her attack (Soujiro had never seen anyone impaled by an icicle before, but apparently that was a thing here), she began shivering violently and curled up into a ball. An odd victory dance, he thought, but who was he to judge?

"So, I'm guessing he wasn't your first time," Soujiro noted. There was a scent of fire in the air. Not just smoke, but the fire itself. That smell always reminded him of Mr. Shishio.

Tabitha didn't answer, but she didn't need to. One _hitokiri_ always recognized another, and if she wasn't a manslayer, he'd eat Derflinger. He watched her huddle closer to one of the burning buildings. Menneville hadn't been able to locate her, so she must have nullified her body heat. He didn't know how much self control and discipline that would have taken. Or magic. Either way, it worked. As she shivered, Soujiro figured that he should try to do something for her, but she wasn't injured, just cold, and there wasn't anything he could do for coldness.

"You know," he said, "with Menneville dead, there's no point in sending everyone else back home."

Tabitha nodded–or at least he thought she did. It was hard to tell with all her shaking. She put two fingers in her lips and forced out a shrieking whistle. Soon the shadow of a dragon passed over them followed by the dragon itself.

"I don't believe it, you did it!" Kirche said, jumping off of the dragon's back. She winced as she landed. Apparently her arm, now in a sling made from her cape, still bothered her. "What happened? Tabitha! Are you okay?" She ran over to her and gave her a hug. "Founder, you're freezing! Did you freeze yourself so he couldn't see you?" Kirche sighed. "Okay, don't worry. We're going to take you home, get you a hot bath, and then have a nice long talk about acceptable risks."

"What _did_ happen?" Guiche asked, dismounting. "That man …." He looked down at Menneville's body, perforated, dismembered, and lying in a pool of blood, and he then winced. "He seemed quite strong."

"Tabitha shot him with an icicle."

"She _did_? _Tabitha_ did?"

"Well, she shot him with several, but that was just to be thorough. The one that killed him was that one right in the middle."

Guiche shuddered. "It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for."

"It is?" Between Mr. Shishio and Mr. Himura, it seemed like words could be more powerful than swords. And didn't mages in this world use words to cast their spells?

"Yes," Guiche replied. "Still waters run deep and all that. I'm glad to see you have kept yourself out of trouble."

"You are?" When he had jumped off of the dragon to meet up with Tabitha and Menneville, Guiche and Kirche had already been out of danger.

Guiche nodded solemnly. "Brotherhood and male bonding are in fashion these days. I don't know why, but it drives the girls wild like extravagant perfume and a sweaty romance novel."

"Okay." Soujiro didn't understand most of what Guiche said, but it never hurt to let the man talk. He turned to address the group as a whole. "So, what's the plan? Is there any chance that we can still catch up with Louise and Wardes?"

Kirche looked away and Guiche shuffled. "Look," Kirche said. "Usually I'm all for putting passion ahead of reason, but I need to get a new wand and something for my arm, Tabitha's in no condition for fun and adventure, and Guiche, well, he started out useless so there's no change there."

"Hey!" Guiche protested. "I create beautiful and deadly golems out of rose petals! Do you think defying the law of conservation of mass is easy?"

"It's a dot-class spell, Guiche. It's nothing to write home about."

"I'm a dot-class mage!"

"And you're not ashamed to admit it, either."

Tabitha turned away from Kirche's embrace. "Can't go. Can send." Her shivering had calmed down, but her lips were nearly as blue as her hair.

"Aw, really?" Kirche asked. "Come on, he's cute! And if Louise has Wardes, will she really need Soujiro too?"

"Will." There was something in Tabitha's eyes when she looked at him. It was respect. Soujiro had always tried to avoid that sort of thing while under Mr. Shishio, and he usually managed it.

"Okay, if you say so." Kirche let go of Tabitha and turned to Soujiro. "But before you go, I need to give you something." She approached him and kissed him smack on the lips. She had always been a tad eccentric, but Louise had done the same thing after she summoned him, so maybe it was just a cultural thing. "That was for saving my life," she added, her voice soft. "And there will be a lot more where that came from when you get back."

"And I have some friendly advice," Guiche said. "When you catch up with Louise, don't tell her Kirche just did that. Because if you do, you might explode. And not in the fun way."

"There's a fun way to explode?"

Kirche smiled. "Like I said, _when you get back._ "

"Sylphid," Tabitha said. "Take him to the pink human by the docks. Don't eat anyone."

"Kyuu!" the dragon replied.

He climbed onto Sylphid's back, and when the dragon spread its wings and took to the air, he finally had his chance to fly.

The dragon lurched upwards, then fell, then lurched again until it gained sufficient altitude. Then it relaxed into a steady glide and Soujiro had the chance to enjoy himself.

"And just think, Mr. Derflinger," he said as the city beneath them grew smaller and smaller. "All this, and we've barely even started!"

"Yup," his sword said. "Constant adventure, yet another one of the many perks of carrying a legendary sword around with you."

"You know, one of these days you're going to have to tell me that legend."

"Eventually. I think magic is involved somewhere."

Soujiro nodded. "That would explain the whole talking thing."

"No, I think it was more about fighting magic. Or something. It's like when you almost remember something, then–"

"Then you remember why you forgot it in the first place?"

"Um, no. It's more like you're chasing something and then you trip and the thing you were chasing turns into a swarm of butterflies and flies away."

"Oh. That has never happened to me."

"Trust me, Partner, it's the _worst_. So why didn't you kill that Menneville guy back there? You had him dead to rights a dozen times over."

Soujiro shrugged. "He was talking. Besides, Louise told me not to."

"Louise told you … I'm pretty sure she would have made an exception for that guy, on account of him trying to burn everything that wouldn't melt."

Soujiro laughed. "Are you kidding? You saw how upset she was when she found out I killed Mott. How do you think she'd respond if she found out I killed a perfectly good mass murderer like Menneville?"

"I think she'd be fine with it."

Soujiro laughed again. Derflinger was a good sword, but sometimes he just didn't understand people. "No, Mr. Derflinger, she'd be mad. See, she's not very strong, but she likes to pretend she is by ordering people around. And each time I disobey her, I remind her that she doesn't control me as much as she'd like to. And if she can't control me, who's to say that I won't abandon her when she needs my help? Who's to say I won't murder her when she's sleeping?"

"Huh."

"And that's not something she enjoys thinking about too much. But just for you, I'll ask her how she would have felt if I did kill that guy."

They arrived at the docks, but they were unlike any docks Soujiro had seen. Back home, the docks had more water around them and less giant trees with flying ships attached to them like fruit. But since they already had flying people and flying dragons, flying ships weren't that unrealistic. Near the base of the giant tree, the dragon swooped down to a speck of pink.

"There she is, Mr. Sylphid!"

The dragon peered back at him. "Kyuu?"

"Miss Sylphid, sorry. I haven't met many dragons. Or any dragons, really. Miss."

"Kyuu!" _She_ flew down to Louise and Wardes. Louise looked happy to see him. Wardes made no expression at all.

"Soujiro!" Louise said as he hopped off of Sylphid's back. "You made it! What happened with the fire mage? Is everyone okay?"

"Everyone's fine. Kirche got a bad burn, but she'll live."

"She did? Did her hair catch on fire too?" she asked hopefully.

"Nope."

"Oh. Good. I guess."

"And the fire mage ended up dead after Tabitha impaled him on an icicle."

Louise blinked. "What?"

"Yeah, Tabitha skewered him with–"

" _What_? Slow down, Tabitha, you said? Blue hair, glasses, doesn't talk?"

Soujiro nodded. "Yup, that's her."

" _She_ managed to kill that … that square-class _maniac_?"

"Like a professional."

Louise put a hand on her head as though worried it might roll off. "I really need to spend more time with my classmates. Next I'm going to find out that Kirche is a virgin and Guiche wrestles bears as a hobby."

"By the way," he said, remembering his promise to Derflinger. "If I had killed him instead, how would you have felt about that?"

Her eyes widened. "Founder, are you crazy? You saw what that man did to–to _buildings_! Enemy mages are why we brought our own mages! You should stick to, to–"

"Opponents in their sleep?" Wardes supplied. Louise looked away, as though suddenly ashamed of something.

Soujiro laughed. "Don't be silly, Mr. Wardes! I don't have that kind of patience. Mott was wide awake at the time." He glanced down at his sword. "Also, Mr. Derflinger? I told you so."

"I don't think–" he started, but Wardes interrupted him.

"Are the others coming with us?"

Soujiro shook his head. "No, they needed to head back to do … things. Mage things. And maybe drink something warm, like soup." Everyone liked soup. "They'll catch up later."

Wardes looked at Sylphid, a calculating look in his eye. "We were just in the process of purchasing passage to Albion, but with a dragon here, that could simplify things."

"Neat!" Soujiro said with a grin. He turned to the dragon. "Hey, Miss Sylphid, I don't know where Albion is, but would you mind flying us there?"

"Kyuu!" Sylphid spread her wings, took to the air, and flew back to the part of the city that was still burning.

"Huh," Soujiro said, watching her leave. "Too bad. But on the bright side, I just learned the dragon word for 'no.'"

Wardes sighed and turned around. "I'll just buy three tickets to Albion then."

WWW

In the end, Wardes didn't buy three tickets, but an entire flying ship. That could fly. In the air. It would be a while before Soujiro managed to wrap his head around that. Sure, he had just ridden a dragon that day, but Sylphid had _wings_. The boat had a rudder. If he knew more about boats, he might have understood how it could work above the water, or that Halkeginia didn't care about impossibility.

Wardes had been able to buy the ship on credit, but to make up for it, he had to help push. The captain had explained about Wind Stones, which apparently fueled the thing by creating enough wind to blow it across the sky. Or make it weightless. Soujiro didn't understand much about the engineering involved, but the ship didn't have enough for the trip so Wardes had to compensate for it.

Nothing could have prepared Soujiro for the sight as the ship took to the air and left the port city behind. Soon the land vanished entirely and there was nothing around them but sea and sky. As the day drew to a close, the sun turned red and sank into the horizon and met its reflection in the mirror-like ocean. And they were so high up, the horizon looked _round_ as though the curvature of the earth were within his sight. Back home, he would have needed to climb a mountain for such a view, and Mr. Shishio never had time for sightseeing, not when there were people who needed killing.

And the view was only part of the experience. If the darkening sky had a limit, Soujiro could almost touch it, and the air was so thin he felt like the gravity of the earth might let go of him entirely.

Wandering, he decided, was _awesome_.

"Nice view, isn't it?" he said, sidling up to Wardes.

Wardes stood at the front of the ship with his sword-wand out, facing forward, his cape billowing majestically behind him. Most capes would have been whipping back and forth in the wind like a desperate man thrashing in chains, but not the capes nobles wore. He wondered if they were enchanted.

"What do you want, boy?" His posture didn't change, but he kept a steady gaze on him from the corner of his grey eyes. "This spell is tiresome, as are you."

Soujiro smiled politely. "I imagine the mission is only going to become more dangerous once we reach Albion. It wasn't supposed to get interesting until we arrived, and we've already lost half our people."

"What's your point?"

"My point, Mr. Wardes, is that we run a great risk of having to work together in the near future."

He sighed. "Perhaps you haven't noticed, but that's what we've been doing."

Soujiro shook his head. "No, it's a subtle difference, but we've been working separately, the distinction being that they're opposites. And this is a problem, because I have a nagging suspicion that you'd be much happier if I were dead, and that's the sort of thing that interferes with teamwork."

Wardes kept his expression blank. "I admit nothing."

"And more and more I'm thinking that maybe Louise should have let us fight this morning. Mr. Shishio would have." Also, Mr. Shishio would have killed any of his men who became a liability, which Soujiro doubted Louise was capable of. "There's nothing wrong with being at the bottom of the hierarchy, and trust me when I tell you that being at the top is just a lot of extra work, but when you don't know where you stand, well, it causes problems. If we had our fight and I won, you'd know your place, and if you won you wouldn't feel so insecure."

"Insecure? Boy, your sense of humor leaves much to be desired."

"My sense of humor is flawless, actually, but that wasn't a joke. Maybe I'm misreading this–I've only seen this sort of thing once before with my friend Katamari, I'll have to tell you about him some time, he's hilarious–but I do know that you're engaged to Louise, and I've seen her naked much more than you have."

His eyes narrowed. "Are you familiar with the meaning of justifiable homicide? No, I imagine in your line of work that wouldn't be an issue."

Soujiro grinned. "See! I knew that bothered you. But really, that girl is not shy at all. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or if Louise is just … anyway, if she were interested in me, she would have done something in the past month since she summoned me, like initiate conversation beyond basic instructions. It turns out I'm easy to overlook. Or maybe I'm just not her type. So really you have nothing to worry about, except for all the people who are going to try to kill us."

Wardes glared at him. "Are you done?"

"Almost." Maybe he was overstepping his bounds, but the only thing Louise had forbidden him from doing was killing people, so he figured he could talk to Wardes all he wanted. "I know you already know this, but this is not a date. You are not here as Louise's fiancé, but as a knight, and your main objective is to keep her alive, not to get her to sleep with you."

"Do not presume to lecture me, boy," Wardes said, his voice soft. "I _know_ my orders far better than you do."

"Great! Nothing could make me happier." He began to walk away. "You know Mr. Wardes, you may not like me much now, but I think you're pretty cool, and by the time this is over, I'm sure we'll be the best of friends."

He scoffed. "Over your dead body."

Soujiro turned around. " _My_ dead body?"

Wardes nodded. "Yes. Should you die on this mission, then as a comrade by technicality, I would be obligated to express some form of sentiment, and maybe even speak kind words at your funeral."

"Really?" Soujiro said, his eyes wide. "Wow! A _funeral_! Thanks, Mr. Wardes! I always thought I'd get wrapped up in straw and tossed in an alley."

And with a slight skip to his step he left Wardes to his brooding vigil until he found Louise. She stood on the opposite end of the ship, facing Tristain long after it had disappeared from view.

"Hey, Miss Louise. Are you feeling okay?"

She glanced at him. "Of course. I mean, sure, Guiche, Tabitha, and that cow Kirche didn't even make it out of the country with us, but I never wanted them with us anyway. We're the ones the Princess chose for the mission, they were just tagging along. We can handle this on our own. Yes, there's an army of traitors between us and Newcastle, but if we can avoid them, what's there to be worried about?"

"Falling," he suggested.

"Falling?"

He nodded. "Sure. You said yesterday that you had a fear of heights. I'm surprised to find you so close to the edge, to be honest."

"What are you talking about? When did I say I was afraid of heights?"

"It was right after we left the academy. Wardes suggested that we all fly to La Rochelle, and you told him you were afraid to."

"Oh! Oh, right, um, I'm … over it. I've overcome my fear of heights now."

"Really? That's great, Miss Louise!"

She stood up a bit straighter. "Yes, actually I wasn't afraid in the first place, I just thought that a gryffon and a dragon flying together would draw too much attention, and I wanted to keep things discreet."

Soujiro nodded. "That's really good thinking."

A smile tugged at her lips. "Yes, people often tell me I have a gift for that sort of thing," she said, sounding more confident.

"What sort of thing?"

"Um, thinking?"

"Ah. I bet that's why the Princess put you in charge."

She nodded in agreement. "Yes. Yes it is. Well, it's getting late, so I'll be going to bed."

"Already? But the stars are just starting to come out! And tonight with us sailing above the clouds, nothing will be blocking the view." On the ground he could only see the brightest ones, but on the ship the night sky seemed to be more white than black.

She stopped and stared at him. "Are you asking me to watch the stars with you?"

"Of course. Miss Yumi once taught me some of the constellations before, but ever since you summoned me, I haven't been able to recognize any of them." It was neat that something like a star could have a name and a story behind it. He had heard that they could be used for navigation, but mostly he just liked knowing things.

"You _are_ asking me to look at the stars with you," she said, sounding shocked. "And you know that Wardes, my _fiancé_ is just on the other side of the ship, right?"

"Well, yeah. I could ask him to point out the constellations to me if you're too tired, but I don't think he likes me much." He was making progress with the man, but he still had a way to go.

Louise put a hand to her mouth to contain a giggle. "Well, I suppose it's only right for my familiar to be cultured and educated in such matters as astronomy. And who better to instruct you than I?"

"Neat! I bet you know the names of all the stars, Miss Louise!"

"Um, of course. All the major ones, at least."

For the next few minutes they stared up into the night sky lying on the deck until they were attacked by pirates. And Soujiro didn't mind that much. Stars were pretty, and could apparently grant wishes in Halkeginia when they fell from the sky, but pirates were more exciting.

WWW

There wasn't a whole lot you could do on a boat when you were attacked. You couldn't run away and there weren't a whole lot of places you could hide, especially when the ship's captain seemed perfectly willing to sell you out. And so as the pirate ship sailed closer to them, there was nothing Soujiro could do but wait.

"I imagine that none of the ships with cannons were for sale, huh Mr. Wardes?"

"Merchant vessels do not carry canons, not in quantities that matter. Idiot."

"That seems like a pretty dumb idea to me," Soujiro said. "But people do that where I'm from too." Mr. Shishio had bought a battleship once, and the thing was loaded with guns, but there wasn't a whole lot of room for merchandise. Apparently normal people had to decide if they wanted to be rich or if they wanted to kill people instead of being able to do both.

"Can we fight them?" Louise asked, standing between them. "I mean, Wardes, you're–"

"Out of willpower," he said. "Pushing this ship quickly enough to reach Albion before the Wind Stones run out has cost me, and I'd be surprised if they didn't have a few mages among them."

Louise looked up at him in surprise. "What? Why would a noble indulge in piracy?"

"Many reasons. Perhaps they are second sons, unable to inherit and not keen on joining the clergy and have chosen to seek their fortune elsewhere. Perhaps their lands and titles have been lost in the civil war, leaving them with nothing but their wands and their cynicism. Or perhaps they simply enjoy killing people, and there is no law in Albion strong enough to stop them."

Her face paled in the red and blue moonlight. "So, what can we do?"

"We rely on their greed to keep us alive for the moment," Wardes said. "It _is_ a major human constant. As nobles, we can be ransomed back to Tristain for a considerable sum, and that should be worth more to the pirates than the alternative. And if they let their guard down and an opportunity presents itself, then we'll improvise."

"But what if they try to–to torture us? Or worse?"

"Oh, that's easy," Soujiro said cheerfully. "Just pretend to enjoy it, and they'll get bored and leave you alone."

"Interesting," Wardes said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Is that why you smile so much?" Oh, that man was _sharp_!

"I had this friend, Houji," Soujiro said, ignoring him. "And he was one of the smartest guys I knew. So one day my other friend, Usui, tried to interrogate him by ripping one of his fingernails off, and Houji decided to go further and rip off six more, and Usui never bothered him again."

Louise swallowed. "Oh, Founder, I think I'm going to be sick."

Wardes gave Soujiro an irritated look and put an arm on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Louise. I told you last night that I would protect you, and I will."

That seemed to calm her down, but Soujiro didn't understand why. "How are you going to protect her if you surrender?"

"Boy? Shut up."

The pirate ship reached their own and the pirates boarded. The men were fabulously dressed with rings, necklaces, and one even had an eyepatch with a golden chain. Many of them sported beards, and one of them, the captain, Soujiro guessed, wore a hat more than twice the size of his head.

The pirate captain approached the merchant captain. "Fine boat you have. What's her name?"

The merchant captain wrung his hands together. "Th-the Marie Galante, sir."

"Marie Galante, you say? What a pretty name!" He frowned. "It doesn't suit this thing at all. Why don't you rename it the Kneeling Harpy? It fits much better, don't you agree?"

"Yes, sir," the merchant said miserably. "Much better."

"Good, good. So tell me, what does the Kneeling Harpy carry?"

"Sulfur, m'lord."

"Sulfur? Looking to sell in Albion? Profit off of their bloody civil war?"

"Um, yes?"

The pirate shook his head. "Disgusting. Merchants have no shame at all. There is no horror you won't squeeze gold from. But let me make you an offer you _cannot_ refuse. Give me the Kneeling Harpy and all her cargo, and in exchange I'll let you live."

The merchant swallowed. "S-sold, m'lord."

"Smart man." He turned back to his crew. "Take a look around, boys. Catalogue the merch thoroughly enough to make a grown accountant weep." He looked at Wardes and Louise and grinned, revealing a mouthful of gold and gemstones. "I'll stay here to take another looksy at the cargo up top." He approached them and looked both of them up and down, ignoring Soujiro completely. "So, what have we here? A pair of noble wayfarers traveling to the White Country?" He grinned again. "Then let me be the first to welcome you to Albion!"

WWW

Albion's official welcome left much to be desired, such as dental hygiene and a welcome party not run by people who deserved the noose. And yet, the danger thrilled Louise more than it frightened her. She hated running away, and she felt a bit bitter about Wardes dragging her away while everyone else fought the pyromancer, but now she couldn't wait to get back and tell the Princess, her family, and all her classmates how she had stared down a crew of pirates while her adventure had barely begun!

The pirates had locked the three of them in a room on their ship after taking their wands and Soujiro's sword while they looted the Marie Galante. Rather inconsiderate of them, really. They were nobles, and in the civilized world, noble hostages came before boxes of sulfur.

It was nearly an hour before their "hosts" deigned to meet with them again, and the pirate captain opened the door to their dark room. The light from the hall illuminated barrels of gunpowder and boxes of cannonballs, which was why there were no lanterns in the room.

"So," the captain said, his golden teeth glistening. "Before I sell you two to the highest bidders, why don't you let me know who I should be inviting to the auction?"

"Whom," Louise said.

The captain looked down at her. "What?'

Wardes put a hand on her shoulder before she could continue. "I am a Viscount of Tristain, and my house will–"

"Hold on," the pirate said. He plucked Wardes's feathered hat off his head and set it on the head of one of his subordinates, adjusting it carefully. He smiled and turned back to Wardes. "Continue."

Wardes hesitated, as though weighing the pros and cons of punching the man in the nose. "My house will pay a reasonable sum for my safe return. This is the youngest daughter of Duke de La Valliere, who I am sure will offer a more than reasonable sum."

The pirate stroked his beard, which looked as though a number of small animals had taken up residence therein. "A duke's daughter? Well, we can consider that jackpot hit!" His crew behind him laughed as if on cue. "And now for our next order of business, what brings you to the misted cliffs of Albion? Pain or pleasure?"

"Business," Louise said. If she had worn a longer skirt, no one would have been able to see how much her knees were trembling. She tried to focus, not on the pirate in front of her or her friends beside her, but on three words her mother told her.

 _Rule of Steel._

Steel did not yield. And it did not compromise.

"I am an ambassador under the command of her Highness Princess Henrietta. If you so much as touch me, pirate, then you will have committed an act of war."

Maybe her voice wasn't as firm as she wished, because the pirate laughed and leaned in close. "Haven't you been paying attention, little lady? War is good for business! That's why I called it pain. And I am _sure_ I can find someone on board willing to touch you." He glanced over his shoulder to his crew. "Hey! Any pedos here up for a romp with a whiney twelve-year-old?"

"I'm sixteen!" Louise protested.

Wardes put a hand on her shoulder. "Um, Louise …."

"Well I am!"

"Yes, but there are some situations when it is appropriate to lie about your age."

"You're twelve where it counts," the pirate captain replied. "But really, what happened to Phil? I know he likes them small."

"You force fed him his own manhood after he said unrepeatable things about your mother, captain," one of the other pirates answered.

"I did? Oh, right. Sounds a bit harsh in retrospect."

"Do your worst, pirate scum," Louise said. "I'm not afraid of you, and there's nothing you can do to me to change that."

The pirate laughed. "Do you hear that boys? That sounded like consent!" He frowned suddenly. "Way to take the fun out of everything. Well, there's clearly no amusement in tormenting you further, and you're worth a lot of money." He turned to Wardes. "And _you're_ worth a lot of money." He turned to Soujiro. "What are you?"

"I'm a wandering swordsman," he said cheerfully.

The pirate frowned. "What, did you just _wander_ aboard the Kneeling Harpy?"

"Back then it was still called the Marie Galante, actually," Soujiro said.

"He's my familiar," Louise explained.

"Your familiar? You summoned a _human_ familiar?" He barked a laugh. "And you wonder why no one takes Tristain seriously. Is he worth anything?"

Was he? Her mother's familiar was one of the few things that caused the woman to express human emotion, but that was a manticore. Louise hadn't yet told her family what she had summoned, but she knew that they wouldn't approve of her summoning a commoner. And they wouldn't be too upset if she had to try again.

"Didn't think so," the pirate said before she could answer. "Looks like we're going to have to throw you overboard then."

"Really?" Soujiro sounded more excited than scared.

"What?" Louise demanded.

"Of course," the pirate captain said. "Familiars are notoriously reckless with their own lives, this ship has a plank, and this crew has a fondness for clichés."

"Neat!" Soujiro said.

"No!" Louise protested. "You can't!"

"I think I can," he replied. "Fortunately, I know how to gain some empirical evidence on the matter."

As the pirates grabbed Soujiro to drag him off, Louise remembered how often Soujiro had been there, so unobtrusive she barely noticed him, how often he had surprised her, and the time only a few hours ago they spent looking at the stars together.

And her steel melted, turned into water, and threatened to spill out of her eyes. "No, please don't! I'll–I'll do anything you want! Just … don't …."

"I know you'll do anything I want," the pirate said before closing the door on them, leaving them once more in darkness and even more alone than before. "You never had a choice in the matter."

WWW

It was a good night to die. Really, it was a good night to do anything, and while dying wasn't at the top of Soujiro's list, the sky was clear, the moons were bright, and the view was spectacular.

Of course, he wasn't weak enough to die just yet, and he doubted that those who were were going to appreciate it.

The pirates shoved him onto the wooden plank that extended across the edge of the ship. It was a long way down and the wind threatened to blow him off.

He smiled at the crew. "You know, I've never expected to be on a real pirate ship. Do I get a last request?"

"I got a last request!" one of the pirates yelled. "Do a flip!"

"Really? Okay." He jumped off the plank (it was pretty springy), twisted in mid air, and managed to land without falling off into the clouds below him. Some of the pirates laughed and applauded, including the captain.

"We don't usually do this," the captain said. _Man_ he had a cool hat. It was like he was wearing a dead peacock with a leather fetish. "But what exactly is your request?"

"Well, remember how your people took my sword away?"

The captain nodded. "Let me guess, you want to die with your sword in hand, or something sentimental like that?"

"Actually, I just want to say goodbye, if that's alright."

The captain laughed. "Even more sentimental."

"See, he's an intelligent talking sword," Soujiro explained. "And if you let me say goodbye, I'll ask him not to practice his singing in the middle of the night."

"This thing can sing too?" another one of the pirates asked, holding up a rusted sword in a scabbard.

"No, but I'm learning," Derflinger said. "Hey, Partner. Things don't look too good for you, do they?"

"What are you talking about, Mr. Derflinger? Things look great! I'm literally on a flying ship, which I've never even _dreamed_ of, and there are two actual moons out tonight! Two! Do you people ever get used to that?"

"Yes," one of the pirates said.

"Oh."

"Actually I was referring to the part where you're about to die," Derflinger said.

"Right." Soujiro looked down into the bottomless night and bounced on the plank. "So I guess this is goodbye."

"I guess so," Derflinger said.

"Well, even though it wasn't very long, I just want you to know that I treasure every moment we had, and you're the best friend I ever … ha ha ha! Oh, sorry, I really thought I could say that with a straight face!"

Derflinger laughed. "You really had me going for a moment! So, you got a plan or something?"

"Plan? No, I think I'll just wing it." He looked down. "Though that would be a lot easier if I actually had wings."

"Perhaps I can offer an alternative," the captain said. "There's always room in my crew for someone with no fear of death or common sense and is mildly entertaining. How do feel about a life of piracy?"

"I don't know," Soujiro admitted. "I've never thought about it before."

"Well, the perks include booze, booty, and not dying tonight."

Soujiro considered that. "I do like not dying."

"Then it's settled. All that remains is a show of loyalty–or disloyalty depending on your point of view. Rape one of the two nobles downstairs, and you'll be officially on board."

"Wait, what?"

"I know which one I'd pick in your situation, but I don't care either way. Usually I'd just have you kill someone, but they're worth too much alive."

"I don't know," Soujiro said. "I don't think Wardes likes me that way, or at all, really, and Louise would probably scratch. A lot. Sorry, but I think I'll have to pass on that offer. Thanks though."

The captain looked at him incredulously. "You would seriously rather die?"

"I wouldn't say I'd rather _die_ , Mr. Captain. To be honest, I'd rather show you a neat trick." He bounced on one foot. "Don't blink."

 _Shukuchi._

The plank shattered beneath him, but he was already gone, pulling Derflinger from his sheath from the hands of a man who wasn't even aware enough to be surprised. And with his sword in hand, the swordsman was finally whole, and he left the men around him in pieces. Louise hadn't given her permission to kill these people, so while he disarmed some and defeated others, he left all of them alive.

He didn't know which pirates were mages and which were commoners, but by the time the mages had gotten their wands out, he was nearly done with them. He found the man who had received Wardes's hat, plucked it off and put it on his own head, and cut off and skewered the arm of a mage with a wand.

And then he ran downstairs to see how Wardes and Louise were doing.

He slammed his sword into the crack of the door to their room and pried it open while the pirates he hadn't dismembered yet chased after him. Inside the room, Wardes and Louise looked at him with surprise.

"Good evening," he said cheerfully. He displayed his sword with the severed arm still holding a wand skewered on it. "I thought you two could use a hand."

"Soujiro!" Louise gasped.

Wardes plucked the wand from the dead fingers. "First of all, that pun was in horrible taste, and you should feel bad about making it. Second of all, that's mine." He took his hat back from Soujiro and put it on his head.

"Aw." Well, it was good while it lasted.

The remaining pirates had caught up and were about to crowd into the room. "Third of all, _Lightning Storm_!" A flash of light, narrow as a thread, bright as the sun, appeared from the end of his wand, one moment linking the men who were attacking them, and the next ending them. The light turned to darkness and the men fell to the floor like puppets with severed strings, emanating the smell of burnt meat.

"Wow." And there went his night vision.

Wardes stepped out of the room and fired off another spell, causing a scream. Soujiro started to follow after him, when Louise threw her arms around him.

As a rule, he didn't like being hugged. It came from being faster than he was strong, and all the speed in the world was no good if the enemy was already holding on to you. But Louise was trembling as though she were colder than she had any right to be, and Soujiro figured … he figured that Wardes could handle the rest on his own.

WWW

Part of a man begged for mercy as Wardes levitated him over the edge of the ship and dropped him into the night. Clean up. That was really all that was left to be done. Their enemies were dead, lying in pieces on the deck of ship, slowly bleeding out. Fortunate, as he had only enough willpower for a few powerful spells.

But none of them were dead. And Wardes couldn't figure out why.

 _What's your game, boy?_

It was far easier to kill people than to defeat them and leave them alive, so was the assassin with the legend's mark on his hand showing off? Or was he making a statement? Wardes had called him an honorless assassin just that morning, so was he trying to prove Wardes wrong by not killing? But where was the honor in dismembering an opponent and prolonging his misery? Would Louise be impressed by such "mercy?"

Or maybe the boy was just deceptively cruel, like a child pulling off butterfly wings, but instead of wings and butterflies it was men and limbs.

No. The boy was too smart for that, and Wardes had to assume that everything he did was deliberate. Like telling him to focus on the mission and then go stargazing with Louise, assuming that Wardes wouldn't notice … or knowing that he would.

It was disconcerting, to say the least. Wardes could learn the measure of most men after a few minutes, but he had never met someone as opaque as Soujiro. They were nearly in Albion, and he didn't know the boy any more than Soujiro knew him.

At least, that was what he so desperately hoped.

WWW

A/n And another chapter done. Once more, I would like to thank Croniklerx for being my first second pair of eyes on this story and for pointing out all the major errors in characterization, plot, and grammar.

I don't know how many of my readers have read the light novel or are just coming from the anime of Familiar of Zero, but the light novel's better. It just is. But if you have read the light novel, you'll remember that Prince Wales introduced himself as a pirate, intercepting supplies being sent to his enemies and he actually had characterization instead of just showing up to die … and die again. He lucked out, though, because he encountered the protagonists while dressed up as a minor villain (and minor villains have a horrible mortality rate everywhere) just when none of the protagonists were in any shape to fight him. Of course, the protagonists lucked out too because they traveled to a war-torn country looking for one man, who happened to be one of the first people they met. So everyone was lucky all around.

I have nothing against coincidences; this story has already had several, but I'll try to maintain canon causes, effects, characters, and so forth while avoiding canon coincidences, because that would just be lazy. And no one wants to read a lazy story. But if you do, then you're in the right place because the internet is full of them.


	11. Chapter 11

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Eleven

"Honor is dead." -The Way of Kings

Albion floated on a cloud it made itself, its rivers flowing off the edge and turning into mist. They had parted ways with the merchant vessel now that they had a ship of their own, and they sailed over the floating island as silently as the moons above them.

Wardes stayed up to steer the ship, trusting no one else to do so, and Soujiro stayed up because he wouldn't miss the sight for anything. Louise went to bed, though. She was dead tired.

"So," Soujiro said, breaking the silence. "Nice night."

Wardes sighed and gritted his teeth. "Why do you insist on fraternizing with me, boy? How long will you persist in this?"

He shrugged. "Until it stops being fun. Or until I figure out why you don't like me so much."

"Do I need to spell it out for you? I'm a knight, you're an assassin."

"And Miss Louise is a mage." Soujiro smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wardes. I'm not that smart. Could you please explain it more?"

Wardes stared ahead stonily. "Assassins kill people."

Soujiro cocked his head. "So do knights."

"That's different."

Soujiro smiled patiently and waited.

"Knights protect people. When I became a knight, I took an oath to protect the princess, or, when she ascends to the throne, to protect whoever should become the future of the kingdom in her stead. And now, I act under her orders to protect Louise. While I may kill others in that task, my first and my last duty is protection."

Soujiro nodded. "So you're a sword that protects the weak." Did that make Mr. Himura a knight?

"A wand that protects the innocent," Wardes corrected. "Or, when the innocent cannot be found, one that protects the future."

"Ah." They stood in silence for a moment. "You know, I'm actually not an assassin anymore. I retired a while ago, gave my sword back and everything. And when I became a familiar, Miss Louise told me that one of the most important things I need to do is protect her. So if you think about it, we're—"

"Nothing alike. Don't even think otherwise, because we _aren't_. You do not _decide_ to no longer be a murderer any more than the condemned can choose to be innocent upon the steps to the hangman's noose. Those bloodstains stay with you until the day you die."

Soujiro shrugged. "Does it matter, as long as we kill the same people and protect the same person?"

"It matters," Wardes said, "because one day you may decide to kill someone whom _I_ choose to protect."

"Well," Soujiro said, "if it makes you feel any better, I promise not to kill Miss Louise."

His lips twisted into a sneer. "And what? Do you expect me to just accept your word of honor?"

"Word of honor?" Soujiro asked. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wardes. I don't think I know what that means."

He nodded. "And that, assassin, is the difference between us."

WWW

When they entered Newcastle, they did it with style. Soujiro always appreciated dramatic flair, though he had no head for it. Mr. Shishio had, and oddly enough, Wardes did too.

The castle that marked the last stronghold of the Royal Family was besieged by a massive warship called the Lexington. Big wasn't even a good enough word to describe it. If they were fish, then the Lexington could swallow their stolen pirate ship whole just by yawning. If fish yawned. Suddenly Soujiro wondered if they could.

Now and then, the Lexington fired one of its hundred plus canons at Newcastle, but most of the time it circled around, making sure none of the royalist ships tried to leave. A siege. It was such a waste of resources it hurt to watch. Even if they had enough food and gunpowder, every day they spent looking intimidating was one more day the royalists had to plan their escape or counterattack. Mr. Shishio had nearly managed to take over Japan almost before the Meiji Government knew he existed, and he didn't get that far by wasting time _besieging_ anything.

Anyway, the Lexington was so busy encircling Newcastle, none of the members of the Reconquista noticed the stolen pirate ship until it was nearly ramming them. By then, Soujiro, Wardes, and Louise were already part falling, part levitating, and part flying on Wardes's griffon down to the castle's ramparts as their ship crashed, burned, and exploded against the Lexington, allowing the three of them to greet the Royalists as it literally rained fire.

The guards still confiscated their wands and weapons, but that didn't make it any less of an entrance. And after the guards decided that the three of them were not a threat, they escorted them to meet the prince.

WWW

Tomorrow may have been a good day to die, but _today_ was a good day to live. Wales Tudor, Crown Prince of Albion, watched the finest blood of his kingdom relish their last hours and look forward for the glorious end that awaited them. Funerals, he decided, were somber things only when they meant a separation, and the loyal sons of Albion planned to die together.

They had started together centuries ago when their fathers' fathers had sworn to the first of his line, they had gone through earth and hell together in this nightmare of a war, and tomorrow they would end together. For Albion, for what it once was and for what it could have been. It was the only land many of them had ever known.

Not Wales, though. He had once had the means and the desire to "see the world," as though if he studied enough trees he could see a forest, and he had made friends who would not be dying with them tomorrow. As his men drank and sang and boasted of their futureless tomorrow, Wales felt his thoughts turn time and again to one person in particular who would not forgive him for leaving her behind.

He liked to think that if she saw him, she would admire his courage, but he knew her better. If Princess Henrietta, the flower and sky of Tristain, could be here now, she would not accept this ending. She would weep and beg and remind him of promises unfulfilled, and she would demand that the son of the King of Albion live while the Kingdom of Albion died.

But she couldn't be here with him at the Royalists' last stand on the eve of their final battle, so she sent an ambassador in her stead. Truly, that woman was relentless, but he could understand her drive. If their positions were reversed, then he would drag her down from heaven before accepting her death as fate. He lead the ambassador and her entourage to one of his sitting rooms to not interrupt the festivities.

"Prince Wales," the ambassador said, "my name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Valliére, ambassador of her royal highness, Princess Henrietta of Tristain." She was young, fifteen or sixteen at most with delicate features and an earnest face. Normally Wales received more experienced delegates, but somehow Louise fit the time they were in. Henrietta wouldn't need to use honeyed words and a silver tongue on him, and he had no patience left for politics.

"This is Viscount Jean-Jacques Francis de Wardes, Captain of the Griffon Knights of Albion," she said, presenting a man to her left. The Knight Captain bowed, but his steel-grey eyes never left Wales, and he didn't seem to need to blink as often as other men. Wales knew his type, and while he himself preferred his men to be able to sing and laugh as well as fight to the death, a man who was constantly alert, restlessly vigilant, and as taut as a thousand-knotted rope could be useful when escorting an inexperienced ambassador through a war torn kingdom.

"And this is Seta Soujiro, my familiar." She motioned to a boy to her right. Unlike the others, he wore no noble's mantle, and while Louise was full of earnest sincerity and Wardes of grim solemnity, Soujiro was all smiles. Wales had at first dismissed the boy as being a simple manservant, but instead he was …

"A familiar, you say?" He chuckled. "I swear, I will never understand Tristain's aristocracy." Louise's face tightened, but she didn't respond. Apparently she had heard that joke before, or perhaps she had an issue with the timing. Well, this was _his_ funeral, he could jest through it if he pleased. "So," he said, making his tone and expression serious. "What can I do for Princess Henrietta? Much of my resources have been allocated to the war effort, but anything I can spare is yours."

"Her Highness believes that if Albion falls, the Reconquista will turn its eyes to Tristain," Louise said. "She requests information concerning their forces, organization, and tactics." She fished an envelope out of her pocket and handed it to him. "She wrote this for you, if you would like to read it in her own words."

He took the letter and held it in his hand. He recognized Tristain's royal seal stamped into the wax, but more than that he felt he could smell Henrietta's scent on the paper. Which was impossible, of course. If anything, the paper should smell like the young ambassador, but by holding the letter, he felt he was touching her again, separated only by a few days of time.

He broke the seal and read the letter.

 _Wales, my love,_ the letter said, written in Henrietta's graceful script. _I need you now more than ever. Your kingdom's enemy has become my kingdom's enemy, striking from the shadows with blooded knives, and I fear it will not be long before they bring their armies in the day. But even this is not the purpose of this letter, Wales, my beloved. I write this knowing my own selfishness in my request, but I beg of you to take whatever path leads to life. If you are honor bound to fight the traitors, know that they can be opposed in any kingdom that they hunger for. Know that they have announced their desires for Tristain just as they have waged war in Albion. Know that knowledge of your death will strike me deeper than any poison, and finally, remember the promise we made to each other upon the shores of the Lagdorian Lake._

 _I love you, just as I swore to you in the presence of the Water Spirit, and I always will. You have never broken your word to me, Wales, my love. Please do not break that one._

Wales stared at the letter long after he finished reading it, his back to the ambassador, and his hand trembled as he held it. He remembered when they first met at a convention between the kingdoms. He remembered little of the recently crowned king of Gallia or the old Pope of Romalia, and even less of the different treaties his father and the king of Tristain had discussed with them, but he remembered her. She was so beautiful, he was half convinced that he had stumbled across the Water Spirit herself when he saw her, and even now he did not fully believe that Henrietta had only mortal blood in her veins.

And, his cousin loved him, loved him as honestly and completely as only a child could. He could never be sure if she had actually believed that they had any sort of control over their own futures or if she was just pretending that they could end up together, but he couldn't stay away from her. He was half asleep throughout the daily feasts and formalities, and at night he would sneak out to see her. Every single time her face would light up like Luna Major coming out from behind a cloud when she saw him, and he could remember her as clearly as though she were standing in front of him.

 _Oh, Henrietta,_ he thought. _When did you grow to be so cruel?_

He turned abruptly, a political smile on his face. "Where are my manners? Forgive me, Ambassador Valliére, I am sure you are tired from your journey. I'll have my remaining scribes compile all relevant military information for you, and it will be ready by sunrise. In the meantime, eat, sleep, and enjoy the festivities."

The ambassador nodded respectfully, but she frowned. "I noticed the feast when we arrived. May I ask, what are you celebrating?"

Wales let out a small chuckle. "Tell me, Ambassador Valliére, do you know many of my people?"

She shook her head.

"No? Well, let me tell you something about the sons of Albion. We are fiercely competitive in the most petty ways. The last battle of this kingdom will be waged at these walls, and after that we will be no more. Surely our enemies will rejoice in their victory, but my men will go to their deaths knowing that we celebrated first and better."

She blinked. "Oh. I see." She seemed confused, but honestly, so was he. Wales suspected that most of the nonsense in the world was the work of men and women too proud to admit how little they knew.

She bowed and left, and her commoner familiar followed her. The knight captain Wardes stayed. "Forgive me, Your Highness," Wardes said. "But if it's not too much trouble, I have one last request."

WWW

Out in the main ballroom, people laughed and danced and ate, knowing that they would soon die. Soujiro couldn't really blame them about the eating part, though. Waiters carried trays of a local delicacy known as _nibbles_ , bite-sized carefully arranged snacks made of combinations of honeyed chicken, olives, bits of fruit, and things he didn't even recognize.

Louise didn't seem to want any though, so he ended up eating hers.

"Does ... does any of this make sense to you?" Louise asked softly.

"Not in the least," Soujiro said. "Honestly, I was hoping you could explain it to me."

She shook her head. "I don't get it either. Prince Wales is convinced they won't win, but they aren't trying to run, or negotiate, or–or anything!"

Soujiro nodded. "I've never understood people very well, Miss Louise, but if I had to guess, I'd say that everyone here is in denial."

Louise cocked her head at that. "What do you mean?"

He smiled. "They look happy. I've seen a lot of people die before, and none of them were happy about it."

He didn't say that most of those dying people fell by his sword, but she read between the lines and winced. She always seemed uncomfortable hearing about his past work, which was probably why Wardes always brought it up. Still, he had stood on both sides of the tip of the sword, there was nothing he wouldn't do to stay alive.

"So," Louise said after a moment, "they think they're going to win?"

"No," he replied. "Prince Wales seemed confident in his defeat. It must be something else."

"I don't think they're in denial. I think they're just hoping for an honorable death."

 _Honor._ Wardes had used that term, and Soujiro hadn't understood it then either. "And that's worth dying for?" He let out a chuckle. "I guess it's not something you could survive, so it would have to be."

He had never considered anything worth dying for. Self sacrifice defied Mr. Shishio's creed, and even as a child when he had been willing to put up with so much pain to avoid hurting people, as soon as he found his life on the line he reached for the sword. The idea that anyone would die by choice was ... curious. It was curious, and it tugged at him.

He excused himself politely, and went back to speak with the prince.

WWW

Soujiro found Wales sitting in a shrine after the style of Halkeginia. It was indoors with rows of long wooden benches and painted windows. _Stained glass_ it was called. You couldn't just take a window and then paint over it, you had to dye sheets of glass, break it into pieces, and then put it together in the window.

The main window had a picture of Brimir. There wasn't anything distinctive about the man in the glass, but no one else would be in the main window of a shrine. Four smaller windows surrounded the first. Above there was a series of colored lights, to the right a ring of swords, to the left a lion fighting a dragon, and below a woman on her knees with a hole through her chest.

There was probably a reason for that, but if there was anything he understood less than art, it was religion.

"I'm guessing you came here because you didn't want to be bothered," Soujiro said as he walked in. "That's great. I don't want anyone to bother us either."

Wales glanced back at him, but remained seated. "Soujiro, was it? That is not a Tristainian name, nor do you have the look about you. From whence do you hail?"

"Japan. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of it. It's pretty far away. If I wanted to show you how far, I would need a _really_ big map."

"Well, Soujiro of Japan, familiar of Valliére, what can I do for you?"

At a gesture, Soujiro sat down on one of the benches. "I have met two people in my life who understood everything. They agreed on nothing, but they were so certain of their beliefs, I still can't imagine either of them being wrong. Now you, Prince Wales, you could run if you wanted to. As far as sieges go, the Reconquista are leaving you a hole big enough to fit an army through. You could surrender and try to work out a deal with your enemies. Instead you've chosen to stay, fight, and most likely die, which makes me think that you must have some pretty fierce convictions."

"Conviction," Wales repeated. "Yes, you could say that. But what of you, Soujiro? Have you no convictions of your own?"

Soujiro shook his head. "No, not of my own. Only the ones I've picked up along the way."

Wales smiled at that. "Convictions are best homemade. Second-hand, they are good for little. What will you do if I give you mine? Will you put it on the shelf with the others? Believing too much can be as dangerous as believing too deeply, and far less useful."

"I promise to believe responsibly," Soujiro said. "Does your conviction have anything to do with honor?"

The prince fell silent for a moment. "Honor. The word is such a petty breath of air compared to the meat of the matter. The nobility never ceases to blather on about it, claiming to fight each other and face unspeakable peril for honor and glory, as though the two were interchangeable, and reminding their servants what an honor it is to serve. Wars have been sparked as an excuse for young fools to gain honor, and my own father was honor bound to execute my uncle when an elf-witch seduced him. If he had another twenty years to live, he might even come to terms with that. Though honestly, when you shear away all the wool, I doubt anyone truly understands what honor is until the day they die."

"So, what is it?"

Wales smiled at him. "What do you think it is? Surely they have honor in distant Japan."

"Yes, loads of it. There it has something to do with suicide."

Wales tilted his head. "Oh?"

Soujiro nodded. "Where I'm from, swordsmen used to carry two swords wherever they went. The first one was about the size of Mr. Derflinger here for their enemies. The second was about half as long for themselves. If they were protecting someone and failed or if they were captured, they were supposed to stab themselves with it."

The prince frowned. "What an odd custom."

Soujiro shrugged. "My last master before Miss Louise said it was nonsense." When Mr. Shishio had first stayed with him, he had given Soujiro his own wakizashi. It worked because a katana would have been too big for seven-year-old hands, but suddenly Soujiro wondered if there was another message in the gift. Mr. Shishio had just been freed, his masters having tried to kill him, so he no longer needed to die for anyone.

"Matters of life and death are seldom nonsense," Wales said. "If you took life and death out of the world, I wonder if you would have anything left. But I'm getting sidetracked. My choice to stay here is, of course, a matter of life and death. I could flee, cling to life, and go into hiding as the Reconquista rages unopposed, but I won't. I know what they will do. When they finish off what remains of Albion, they'll turn to Tristain, and won't stop until the world is theirs. My stand here at Newcastle won't stop them, but those who stand with me will serve as the lightning rod to the fury of their storm, so perhaps Henrietta with her armies will survive what I will not."

"Lightning rod?"

Wales blinked. "Yes. Do you not have them in Tristain? No, I suppose not. There are no storms in all the world like what we have in Albion. It's a metal spike you see on the tops of buildings to channel lightning safely to the ground."

"Oh, I think I've seen those. I just thought they were meant to make the buildings look more intimidating. Metal can do that?"

"Of course," Wales said. "But we are, once again, getting sidetracked. I've told you what I am willing to die for, and that is my honor. What of you, Soujiro? What are you willing to die for?"

Soujiro laughed. "Oh, that's easy, Prince Wales. I wouldn't die for anything."

Wales cocked his head. "Are you certain of that? Not for your home, your family, your friends? Not for the young ambassador who claims you as her familiar?"

Home? He was a wanderer; he had no home. He killed his family a decade ago. The first few were out of self defense, but the last ... he didn't like thinking about it. And friends? Did he have friends? He knew a few people, but they didn't know him. Louise?

"I don't mind helping people if they need help," he said. "But I'm going to live forever or die trying." He smiled. "I guess Mr. Wardes was right about me."

 _If you're strong, you live._

Wales frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that, Soujiro. Because you won't live forever, no matter how hard you try. The basest cowards die as surely as the brave, and so will you, either by your weakness or your choice. I hope you understand that while the choice is still yours to make."

Soujiro doubted that. He had spent his whole life without understanding anything. But he felt like he might be getting closer.

WWW

Louise stood alone at the end of the world. Was that a bit melodramatic? Yes, but that was how she felt. She was surrounded by people who cheerfully knew they were about to die. A ship was leaving the next morning through a hidden dock to carry the commoners and noncombatants to safety, but that left three hundred royalists who would not survive the Reconquista's assault.

She still didn't know how everyone knew when the traitors would attack. Maybe as an act of professional courtesy the different armies had coordinated their final battle together, or perhaps the royalists were just keeping track of the Reconquista's troop movements.

Either way, she stood alone. Wardes was … wherever he had disappeared off to, and Soujiro had left to bother the prince for reasons only he knew. Sure, Newcastle was the safest place they had been since she had left the Academy, but that didn't mean that she couldn't get lonely here, and with everyone around her enjoying their own funerals, Louise desperately wanted to talk to someone she knew.

Not that she knew either her fiancé or her familiar. She used to know Wardes. She used to be in love with him, but that was ten years ago. Now? She had hoped that when she was with him her heart would race, or that she would feel happy just knowing that he was nearby like in the books she had read, but instead she usually just felt scared. Admittedly traveling through a war torn kingdom on a mission that determined the fate of Tristain wasn't the most romantic thing they could do together, but she still felt disillusioned with her situation.

She used to think that she knew her familiar, but she never really did. She _assumed_ she knew him when she first summoned him, and she _assumed_ that there wasn't much to know. How was she supposed to know that the smiling boy Brimir had sent her was a professional assassin who could run so fast he turned invisible?

 _You could have asked._

Alright. That was on her. She hadn't displayed much initiative or curiosity when it came to getting to know her familiar. She _had not_ cared. If she had asked, would he have told her? Maybe. He had seemed fairly candid with his past whenever it came up. Still, there was no point in asking now. It wasn't like Soujiro had yet another deep dark secret lurking in his past. And if he did, Louise would honestly rather not know about it.

 _So that's the plan? Keep dreaming because your dreams are pleasant? Keep dreaming because you're afraid to wake up?_

She wasn't a coward. She was a noble, youngest daughter of the House Valliére! But she was still afraid, because she had a choice to make.

Wardes said he loved her. Well, men said a lot of things, but he also said that he wanted to marry her. She should be happy about that, but marriage was the ultimate commitment. If she wasn't willing to give up everything to be with him, then she wasn't ready. Maybe she was being too romantic about an arranged marriage, but she didn't want just an arranged marriage, she wanted a happily ever after and she wasn't going to settle.

The main issue, as she saw it, was that Wardes hated Soujiro. The man was stoic towards everything else, but Soujiro managed to get on his nerves just by being there. She didn't know if Soujiro deliberately annoyed Wardes in return, or if the boy was just socially incompetent, but it didn't look like the two were going to get along anytime soon.

Part of the problem was Soujiro's dishonorable past, but Louise suspected that most of it was jealousy. Wardes may have been engaged to her, but Soujiro was the one living with her. He was also much closer to her own age and by Kirche's estimation (not that she had standards), reasonably good looking. But no, it was worse than that. The two of them were bound together by a contract sealed by a kiss, so by that logic an outsider would consider them already married.

Which they weren't. Not even close. They had kissed once (not by choice), and that was it. Besides, if she and Soujiro were so "married," where was he right now?

"Hey, Miss Louise," Soujiro said, making her jump a good foot in the air. "Your face is all pink."

"Soujiro! Founder, don't sneak up on me like that!"

He smiled and bowed respectfully. Or mockingly. She honestly couldn't tell. "I promise that was not my intention. I just got back from talking to the prince, a nice guy, by the way, and I thought I'd check on you to see if you needed anything."

She hoped Soujiro hadn't bothered Wales too much. A commoner couldn't just steal an audience with a prince whenever he wanted. "I'm fine," she said. "I was just thinking about Wardes and … Wardes."

Soujiro nodded. "Yeah, Mr. Wardes can be pretty confusing, but I like him alright."

"It's not that I don't understand him, it's that, well, we're nearly done with our mission. After this, we just need to get back to Tristain and we'll be safe again."

"And everything goes back to normal," he finished.

"No, it won't. Eventually, sometime, maybe when I'm done with school, Wardes wants to get married."

"Good for him."

"To me."

"Good for you."

"Is it?"

Soujiro shrugged. "Is it?"

"I don't know! That's the thing with marriage; I'll know whether or not it's a bad idea ten years into it, but by then I'll already be stuck with him until one of us dies. That level of commitment is kind of intimidating, don't you think?"

Soujiro cocked his head thoughtfully. "I've known quite a few people who had promised to spend the rest of their lives together, but that was mostly because they had sworn to kill each other."

Louise sighed. "Well, I can't imagine any advice you could give me would be very useful anyway."

"Wait." He appeared in front of her, literally disappearing from her side and reappearing an instant later. "Are you asking me for relationship advice?"

She hesitated. "Do you have any?"

"Second-hand. Is that okay?"

She shrugged. "Why not?"

He grinned. "Wow! No one has ever asked me for advice before! Okay, so I had this friend named Chou."

Louise held up a finger. "Before you go any further, was this friend a mass murderer?"

"Of course. Where I'm from, you don't live very long without killing a few hundred people."

"Lovely. Go on."

"So Chou, he loved swords. He would spend his free time tracking down legendary swords made by legendary swordsmiths, and the weirder, the better. He made a collection out of them. He had straight swords, curved swords, singles, doubles, one that was twenty feet long and wiggled like a snake …"

"Is there a point to this story?"

"But he never knew any of them. A first-rate swordsman must know his sword like he knows himself, and Chou always wielded strangers. Mr. Shishio, on the other hand, only ever used one sword. It was the finest sword made by the finest swordsmith, and he knew everything there was to know about it, its weight, its balance, everything. He didn't need to waste time remembering the little unique quirks that each weapon had because he never forgot them."

Louise frowned. Why was she even having this conversation? Oh, right, because the alternative was thinking about how all the Albion royalists would be dead in a few days. "I'm not sure if I was clear on this, but I'm interested in getting married to a _human_."

"It's the same with people, too," he assured her. "Whenever we got to a new city, Chou would always head over to the first brothel he could find and ask for whatever they had that was weird. He would come back and tell us about contortionists, conjoined twins, girls with ropes, girls with whips—"

"Oh, please, give me _all_ the details!" Louise said sarcastically.

"Actually, I don't remember any," he said, missing her tone. "I was never really paying attention, and Chou would always tell his stories to Anji, because Anji used to be a monk and … well, that's not important. My point, though, is that Chou knew those girls even less than he knew his swords, and I don't think he ever found someone worth returning to. Mr. Shishio, though, found the most beautiful woman in the country who hated the government as much as he did, and they lived happily ever after."

Louise blinked. "It's like a bedtime story," she said flatly. "Now, in this story, am I supposed to follow the example of the horny pervert or the man who was last seen assassinating the prime minister?"

"The second one."

"Right, because he seems like such a wonderful person."

Soujiro shrugged. "He'd be the last person to call himself a saint, but he and Miss Yumi got along perfectly."

"Well, there's someone for everyone, I suppose. Still, I'm not comfortable taking relationship advice from a homicidal maniac."

"Oh." He fell silent for a moment, and Louise worried that she might have offended him. "How about from a prince?"

"What?"

Before she knew it, Soujiro had led her to Newcastle's chapel, and she found herself standing in front of Prince Wales. One of these days, she was going to have to teach him proper protocols when addressing royalty, but Wales didn't seem bothered by the informality, and if it was fine with him, Louise wasn't going to bring it up.

"Ambassador Valliére," Wales said, slightly melancholy. "How may I be of service?"

"Um, I don't mean to bother you more than I already have, your Highness," she said, shooting a glare at her familiar, which he received, as usual, with a polite smile.

"It's no bother at all, really." He gave a wry smile. "And if it is, you're only distracting me from my imminent doom. Please, have a seat."

She sat down on one of the long oak benches. Chapel benches, even those in a castle, were left uncushioned to keep people awake for long sermons. She took a deep breath and began. "Well, see, your Highness, it's like this. I'm engaged to Viscount Wardes, have been ever since I was six. It was something our families set up. It's great, you know, having a plan for the distant future, so when I'm old enough we'll, you know, but he's old enough right now and he wants to take the next step, which is, you know, …"

"Marriage?" Wales supplied.

"Yes! And I understand that because he's, like, twenty-six right now, but I'm still in school, and I don't want to drop out, but I'm not learning much anyway, um, that's another story, but I've already made him wait ten years and if I make him wait two more he might find someone else and I'll be miserable for the rest of my life and die alone." She breathed in. "Sorry, is this unorthodox?"

"Very," Wales said. "Usually people come to me asking for advice on irrigation regulations and optimal ore tariffs. Talking about something that I've actually put thought into is quite refreshing. So. Tell me this, Louise—I can call you that, can't I? Tell me, do you love him?"

She deflated. "I don't know. I think so?" He was handsome, skilled, and of high class, and Louise doubted that she could do any better. "He might. He says he does, but …"

"But lying is as easy as talking. In a more peaceful age I'd tell you to take the relationship slowly and wait until you know him better before you promise him the rest of your life, but you never know how much time you have left until you don't have any at all." He fell silent for a moment. "I suppose Henrietta trusts you enough for me to tell you this, and I won't be here long enough for it to matter; we've been seeing each other in secret for several years now. I think I fell in love with her the moment I saw her, but I never knew for sure until today."

Louise blinked. "What happened today?"

He smiled the same melancholic smile he greeted her with. "I said goodbye. I realized I would never see her again, and I wished her happiness in her life, even if it's a life she won't spend with me. If I were driven by the same passions and appetites that rule so many, I do not think I would have been able to let her go. You want to know if you love the man you are engaged to. You want to know if he loves you back. If you have to choose between yourself and him, and find yourself choosing him, then you'll know."

She nodded like she understood. She didn't, but she had taken up enough of the Prince's time already. "Thank you."

WWW

Wardes was easy to find. Several of the royalists and staff were able to direct Louise to the Tristanian knight walking the halls alone. She left Soujiro behind, knowing that her familiar's presence would only antagonize him. The torchlight flickered from the sconces along the walls, burning, perhaps for the last night, for the royalists.

"Louise," he said, turning to face her. "Good evening." He spoke formally. He was always formal.

"Wardes, we need to talk."

He nodded. "Then talk."

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Without prodding or prying, he waited.

 _Say goodbye._ "I'm breaking up with you!" Her words came out rough and shattered, like one of her failed spells.

He frowned. "What brought this on?"

 _Gentle_! she told herself. _Break up gently!_ But while he didn't seem happy about her statement, neither was he upset. "I'm sorry, Wardes, but I just can't love you, because I'm … I'm in love with someone else."

"Who?" His grey eyes narrowed in terrifying focus. "It's not that familiar of yours, is it?"

"No, it's …" Who else did she even know? Guiche? Eew. One of her teachers? Old _and_ eew. "Princess Henrietta!"

He blinked. "What?"

 _What?_ She was _horrible_ at thinking on her feet. "… yes."

"Oh."

"So … you see …"

"There's no problem."

"Uh, what?"

"Your situation isn't as rare as you might think," he explained. "But even if the Princess feels the same way towards you, there are too many factors to prevent her from expressing those feelings publicly. I've been trying to romance you this entire trip to make this easier for you, but let us be honest with each other. Our arrangement has always been political."

Louise gaped. "What? You mean … you don't love me?"

His shoulders gave a barely perceptible shrug. "Does it matter if you don't feel the same way towards me? That is rather petty, Louise. Surely you can see that."

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish drowning on the shore. "You—you _jerk_! I can't believe I fell for that, fell for _you_!" Suddenly it didn't matter what the political advantages of their union could be. Wardes _did not_ love her, and that was all that mattered.

He frowned. "What? But you said—"

"I lied. I wanted to see if you really cared, and you _don't_!"

"That was a trick?"

" _That_ was a trick? Everything you ever told me was a trick, you lying … liar!" She raised her hand to slap him, but he was too tall, so she hit his shoulder instead. It wasn't very satisfying, so she hit him again.

Before she could hit him a third time, he grabbed her by the front of her shirt, lifted her off her feet, and slammed her against the wall. "Look," he said, his voice cold. "You strike me as the sort of _little girl_ who has only seen the world through story books, so I will tell this to you once. Grow. Up."

She considered kicking him between the legs, but she decided that making him mad would be a very bad idea. "Wardes," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Put me down. Put me down right now."

"People will live and die depending on your choices, Valliére, and if you think you're going to get a happy ending in this story, that you _deserve_ a happy ending—"

"Soujiro!" she called, her voice echoing through the hall.

"Hello!" In an instant he was there, smiling cheerfully, a hand resting on his sword hilt. "Are you having fun, Miss Louise? Mr. Wardes! I've barely seen you since we got here. By the way, would you mind putting my master down?" He laughed politely. "Because if you don't, I'll have to cut your arm off, and that's going to make the return trip _really_ awkward."

Wardes turned his hard gaze to him, unblinking, seeming to forget Louise entirely. "My apologies, I …" His eyes flickered to Louise, a courtesy, before returning to the threat. "Excuse me."

She fell from his grasp to the floor and watched him walk off into the night.

WWW

When he was a child, Wardes never planned a thing. He stopped when he discovered what disaster an unplanned life could be, but when he planned every step, every breath, and it _still_ fell to pieces, that was a bitter drink, bitter as blood. Brimir looked down at him piously in stained glass, though if the Founder smiled in sympathy or mockery, he could not tell.

"So," Wales said, sitting down on the bench next to him. "No wedding?"

Everyone remembered Brimir as a saint, a _savior_. They forgot how many he had to kill to save the few who lived. "No wedding."

"Pity. I would have enjoyed it, if only to stagger the monotony of the funeral. Would you like to talk about it?"

Wales was a personal man. He flaunted his humanity to defy the pedestal upon which his title had placed him. Wardes had seen the same traits in Henrietta. Both tried so hard to be part of the people around them because they had no idea who they really were. "Do you think that if you didn't focus so much on the problems of others, you might have less of your own?"

Wales flinched, but he recovered quickly. "More problems, less problems," he said, his voice indifferent. "We'll never know, and at this point it hardly matters."

"Because you are determined and content to die?"

"Determined, yes."

"To die fighting your own people," Wardes mused. "Because they are your people, are they not? The Reconquista, each a son of Albion."

He hesitated, but smiled quickly. "Now, that is a philosophical quagmire I wouldn't wish on anyone. What is Albion? A landmass? A billion tons of rock and Windstones? Or is it a group people? People who die and are replaced by their descendants, people who come and go, trying their luck in foreign lands? I've thought about this, Wardes, I thought about it whether I wanted to or not. And I've decided that it comes down to faith."

"Faith," Wardes repeated.

"Yes. Those who believe in me are my people, and I lead them, fight for them; and those who deny me, I stand against."

Wardes nodded, still not looking at the young prince. He only looked at the image of the Founder in the glass, wanting to look at anything else, so he stared holes into Brimir, eye for eye until one of them blinked. "Is it such a precious thing, to be God?"

Wales frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You will lead all who believe in you to their death," Wardes said. "They cheer for you, fight for you, but must they die for you as well? You could save them if you step down, return their lives, and reject their faith. You could save Tristain, too. Princess Henrietta believes in you as much as any of your subjects. If you die on the wands of the Reconquista, she will never forgive them and will burn Tristain to the ground to avenge you. But if you swallow your pride join the Reconquista, you could save two kingdoms, and no one needs to die."

For a moment, Wales was silent, surprised that a knight of Tristain would voice unspeakable ideas. "No one needs to die," he repeated. "They only need to kneel."

"We all kneel!" he said. He felt angry. Why was he angry? "All but kings."

He could feel Wales staring at him from the side, growing suspicious that this was more than a philosophical debate. "I read a book long ago. I've forgotten the title, forgotten everything about it except for one phrase. 'The subjects do not kneel so the king can stand; the king stands to teach his subjects how.' And, I might add, when. I do not oppose the Reconquista because they oppose me, they oppose me because I oppose them. I recognize the appeal of a unified, continental empire, Wardes, I do, but not under the Reconquista.

"Their leader is a religious man," Wales continued. "Did you know that? Oliver Cromwell, he was a bishop before he decided he wanted to be a king. I met him before the war when he offered my father his false, undying loyalty, and even then he was a fraud. You meet a lot of churchmen like him, people who don't know what faith is, but have figured out how to use it to get people to give them money. He still prays poetically and speaks piously, and asks Brimir to bless his armies before each battle. He preaches sermons about the holy destiny of the Reconquista to take over the world. He doesn't phrase it like that, of course, but that's what it is: greed, lust for power. That's another trait about his sort of churchman; you can get away with anything as long as you declare it to be the Founder's will. Still, even if he defeats my army, even if he conquers the whole of Halkeginia, Brimir does not protect those who try to sit upon his throne, and Cromwell, his Reconquista, and all who allow themselves to be swept up in their lust and greed _will_ find themselves at the left hand of God."

Wardes felt a shiver run up his spine as he looked up at stained-glass Brimir, framed by his four familiars. Mind. Heart. Right. Left.

"Perhaps we will."

WWW

Despite what Soujiro had said, Louise knew that the trip home was going to be plenty awkward already. _Wardes doesn't love me._ That stung. She thought she was loved, but she was only being used.

She wanted to talk to someone, hoping that talking would help her figure out what she wanted to say, but she couldn't talk to Soujiro. He was … it would be cruel to call him simple, but he didn't seem to understand her any more than she understood him, so that left Prince Wales.

No, there was more than that. It was his fault that she had stumbled into the truth in the first place, so he needed to help her clean it up. And, just as important, she only had a few more hours to convince him to live.

But when she opened up the doors to the chapel where she had last seen him, Wales Tudor, Prince of Albion, lay dead beneath the altar, Wardes, sword-wand bloody, standing over him. For a moment Louise stared, confused, as though watching a scene in a play. "Wardes? What's going—"

Wardes waved his sword-wand, and the door behind her slammed shut. _Bloody sword over a body._ Louise struggled to deny it. "What's going on?" she said again.

He stared through her. "You know."

She swallowed. "Why?" she demanded. "Why would you …" She motioned towards Wales' body. "So I break up with you and you start killing people?"

He laughed, a hollow, contemptuous sound. "I've been killing people since before I ever met you, girl. Wales was not the first, and you will not be the last."

Panic hit her. Her noble pride was too deeply ingrained in her to allow her to run even if she thought it would do any good, so she pulled out her wand. "Fireball!"

Everyone called her a weak mage, but she wasn't. Unskilled, yes, even incompetent, but her failed spells were _powerful_ , capable of breaking the unbreakable and destroying the indestructible.

If she could aim worth spit she'd be fine. Instead, she missed entirely, shattering the stained-glass window of Founder Brimir twenty feet above her target.

Wardes glanced back, noting her spell's effect. "It's hard to imagine how powerful you could become if you ever figured out what you were doing. If it's any consolation, Louise … no, I suppose it wouldn't be."

He pointed his sword at her, and it began to glow. For a mage of his caliber, the only sort of spell that required any time to charge up were square-class spells. A quick death. A small mercy.

But before the spell hit, a figure stood in the window, a black silhouette framed by the twin moons.

Wardes released his spell, and something hit Louise _hard_ … and she found herself on the other side of the room.

She sucked in breath, _somehow_ still alive. She blinked, and found Soujiro standing right next to her. "What— _Soujiro_? What are you doing here?"

Her familiar smiled just like he always did. "Oh, I was just out for a walk, heard an explosion, and I thought I'd see what was going on. I hope you don't mind me intervening, Miss Louise, but you looked like you were about to die. So, Prince Wales looks pretty dead. What happened to him?"

"Wardes killed him." Wardes still stood over the Prince's body, his face unreadable.

"Well that's too bad," Soujiro said. "I kind of liked that guy. I don't know if he was one of the silliest people I've ever met or the first one I found in this world who understood anything, but I liked him. He taught me about honor, death—"

"Lightning Storm!" Lightning flashed, blinding her, but when she blinked away the afterimage she was still alive, with the acrid scent of burnt air in her nostrils.

Soujiro's sword stood embedded in the floor in front of them. "And lightning rods," he continued, pulling his sword out, "which turned out to be a lot more practical than I thought. You okay, Mr. Derflinger?"

"Ah! Oh yeah," the sword said. "That woke me up. But I'm fine. Highly conductive, thank you very much."

"Glad to hear it." He sheathed his sword and looked back to Wardes. "Still, I can't tell you how glad I am that _you_ killed him, Mr. Wardes."

Wardes frowned. "Why is that?"

"Because ever since I met you, there's been something about you that I couldn't say, a connection that people like me don't get very often, and I finally know what it is! You're just like me."

Wardes' face twisted in disgust. "I am nothing like you."

"Sure you are. You're a _hitokiri_ , a, what did you call it again? An honorless assassin. Sure you have facial hair and a cool hat, but other than that we're the same." He smiled. "Was your mother a whore too?"

"Air hammer!"

 _Wham!_ Something crashed into her—not the spell—and Louise was somewhere else again, in Soujiro's arms. He set her down. "I hope you have a few more techniques, Mr Wardes, because as Mr. Shishio always said, a technique is only half as good the second time you've seen it. But I can tell that you're getting impatient, so I apologize for taking so long. Still, if you could indulge me for a moment longer, I have one more question before we get started."

Wardes narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Soujiro didn't turn around, but he gestured toward her so she knew he was speaking to her. "Is it okay with you if I kill this guy?"

WWW

Soujiro waited a moment for her to respond. The wait was important—the _command_ was important. He had wanted to become a wanderer, but that could wait until later. Now he was a _hitokiri_ , just like he had always been, and he killed _only_ on demand.

That didn't mean he didn't want it. Wardes was strong, and unless Louise intervened, Soujiro wouldn't have to share. _The weak are food for the strong._ He was going to get to see exactly what a mage was capable of.

"Soujiro," Louise said, "kill him."

He smiled.

Wardes cast a spell, and split into seven copies of himself.

"Wow!" Soujiro said. "I've never seen a trick like that before, Mr. Wardes. Are those copies real, or are they just illusions?"

"I assure you, boy, they are real."

"Really? Let's test that." Soujiro darted forward and drew his sword, slicing through one of them. The copy dissipated into smoke, offering no resistance. Of course, the people he cut through didn't slow his sword down much either, so … "I still can't tell."

"Then perhaps a demonstration is in order!" The six remaining copies began chanting a spell, and once more Soujiro let them finish. He was going to kill Wardes, but this wasn't about killing him, it was about feeding off of him, learning his spells and techniques so that the next mage he fought would fall that much easier.

And Wardes' next spell was outstanding. The air in the building came to life, swirling around them in the center of the room, and the whirlwind grew stronger and stronger, sending the hard wooden benches flying like dead grass.

The wind sent Soujiro running on the walls just to stay on his feet, but he had always been able to do that, and now he didn't even need the floor. He hopped whenever he came to a corner and kept running, so fast that even if Wardes shot him with lightning, he wouldn't be able to hit him.

Louise wasn't so lucky. She tumbled and rolled with the rest of the debris, neither as strong nor as sturdy as the wood benches or the stone walls. When he caught her, she wasn't conscious. He wasn't even sure if she was breathing.

 _Protect the weak._ A command? A condemnation? Either way, the contradictions he was trying to reconcile could drive him mad, but not for a while. Now, he stuffed her in a closet for safe keeping while he gave Wardes the focus and consideration a mage of his caliber deserved.

Back on the walls, Soujiro ran towards the ceiling, as far up as he could go, then he came down to the floor. He went up and down and up again, turning the circle of his movements into an ellipse that became more narrow with each turn. Up, down, up, down, wall, ceiling, wall, floor. He had to dodge the shattered windows, but soon he had enough momentum to challenge the wind.

He shot down like a bullet and hit the floor without slowing down. He ran forward, straight for the six Wardes', the air whipping at his clothes and sucking the breath from his lungs, but still he ran.

And it still was not enough. A few feet away, he hit a wall of air, too thick to run through, almost too thick to cut. He stumbled and nearly fell, but kept running. He came back and attacked from the other side, and once more hit the invisible wall.

It was a perfect defense. With the whirlwind swirling around, Soujiro could barely attack at all, and those attacks were blocked by Wardes' air shield. He considered changing their fight into a battle of attrition to see how long Wardes could keep the spell up, but he was getting tired.

Endurance was for people who held back, at least that was what he had always believed. He may have been biased, considering how Mr. Shishio physically couldn't fight for much more than fifteen minutes, but few of Soujiro's enemies needed more than two.

Wardes, it turned out, was one of them. Should he leave and come back after the tornado died down? No, he couldn't. Louise was still stuffed in the closet. She wasn't just weak, she was his weakness, and though he could feel Mr. Shishio's disapproval, he couldn't leave her behind. That meant the only choice he had left was … well, he was short on options.

"Partner!" Derflinger said. "I just remembered something!"

"That's great, Mr. Derflinger." He was nearly out of breath, but that was no excuse for discourtesy. "I would love to hear about it after this fight."

"But it's important! I know my legend!"

"Again, that's great, and after this fight, I'll give your legend the attention it deserves."

"Okay, Soujiro, but just a quick spoiler, I can absorb magic."

He nearly tripped. "What?"

"Oh, so _that_ got your attention."

 _Watch the window!_ "How does it work?"

"I admit I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I need something from you: emotion. That's why it's taken me so long to figure it out, Partner, because you're pretty much a dry well, but if you got, I don't know, a whole lot of repressed anger for me to work with, I'll be able to shine like I haven't in a thousand years."

Anger? Towards Wardes? No, if anything, he liked the guy. Sure, he assassinated a politician in an act of war, but who hadn't?

Still, there wasn't much else he could do, so he opened his heart and felt like he hadn't since his fight with Mr. Himura, and found …

He found that after all these years, he was the same. It had been ten years since he had joined Mr. Shishio, but after all that time, he was, in his heart, still a child, crying in the rain.

He was, still …

Afraid.

WWW

 _Soujiro watched the fortress burn._

" _So, Mr. Shishio is dead," he said as the smoke ascended over Mount Hiei. "Together with Miss Yumi."_

 _He remembered when Miss Yumi started traveling with them. He had never been sure why Mr. Shishio had insisted on having a woman who couldn't fight or handle logistics at his side, but Soujiro had liked having her around. Having her around had made it seem like, he realized, he had a family. Mom and Dad, hard at work on the family business. He had killed families like that. His_ first kill _had been a family like that._

 _Of course he never would have said that out loud. Mr. Shishio had no use for sentimentality, and so neither did Soujiro. Besides, he had been too broken from the start to realize how he felt. He had been too broken to_ feel _anything until now._

 _And now it was too late. The fortress burned, filling the air with the thick, toxic smell of ignited oil, and sent the remains of Mr. Shishio's flesh, blood, and dreams up in smoke._

 _How had this happened?_ How? _He knew how strong Mr. Shishio was, and he had given him the secret of Mr. Himura's Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki. Hadn't that been enough? And if the Battousai was so much stronger, then what had happened to the sword that protected the weak? What had happened to his vow not to kill?_

 _The fear, the anger, the guilt, the love, the pain, was all too much, and too fast. Yes, Soujiro had wanted to become a wanderer, but he had wanted to wander through Mr. Shishio's world, and watch him take over the country from afar. Now he just wanted things to go back to the way they were._

 _So he did the same thing he always did. He smiled, and felt nothing._

 _Before his heart closed once more, the last thought that entered it was that Mr. Shishio had died in battle, and Miss Yumi had died at his side, so in a way, both had gotten what they had really wanted._

 _But that was sentimental nonsense. Neither of them had wanted to die at all._

That was long ago. In the present, he screamed.

WWW

Louise woke up with a throbbing bruise on her everything, and found herself in a confessional. _Forgive me, Founder, for I have sinned._ Though, she felt like she had already gone through hell, so whatever penance she owed, she figured she had already paid.

Then she remembered. Prince Wales, lying dead on the floor. Viscount Wardes, ready to kill again. Soujiro, confident that he could handle it.

And she had let him. What was she thinking? What was she _thinking_? What sort of master sent her familiar off to fight a square class mage? She should have told him to run away, and if she was feeling particularly pragmatic and cowardly, to take her with him, not charge boldly to his death.

But … was he dead? He had managed to counter Wardes' first two spells, and if he had lost, Wardes wouldn't have left her alive. Of course, if Soujiro had won, she couldn't imagine him leaving her alone either.

In fact, how had she ended up in this tiny room anyway? She remembered being picked up by a tornado and … and that was it. She wasn't sure if they had killed each other, forgotten about her, or just left, but she wasn't going to stay hiding in a confessional when she had the strength to stand.

And she could stand, with effort. She pulled herself to her feet, gripped her wand, and stumbled out the door.

In the church, she found the remains of a disaster. Broken pieces of furniture lay strewn across the room, the stained-glass windows were cleanly shattered, and while the body of Prince Wales was nowhere in sight, the top half of Wardes' torso lay on the floor.

In the middle of the room stood Soujiro, with blood on his sword, and tears on his face.

"Soujiro?" she asked, stepping gingerly through the wreckage.

He looked up at her, and his lips twitched as though trying to smile. "Oh, h-hello Miss Louise. I was … I was just about to go wake you up."

"Are you okay?" There wasn't a scratch on him that she could see, but …

He glanced at Wardes' dead body and gripped his sword so tightly his hand turned white. "Y-yes." He smiled successfully—barely—and said again, "Yes, I'm fine."

"You're crying."

"What? No I'm not, I—" He felt his face, and looked surprised when his fingers came away wet. "It's raining," he decided. "The weather here is … you know."

Louise looked up at the ceiling, one of the few parts of the church that was still in one piece, and felt very, very small. Wardes shouldn't have lost to a commoner, no matter how skilled, but more than that, the Soujiro she knew _did not_ cry. What had she _slept_ though?

She didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could. She smiled and played along. "That's right," she said. "It's just the rain."

WWW

A/n It has been a _long_ time since I updated, but this is the one story I have that has gotten onto the TV Tropes Fanfic Recs Page (and I will never stop being pleased with that), so I couldn't help but come back to it. Eventually. And I did, so go me!

Anyway, enough patting myself on the back, let me pat you on the back. You are the people who stayed with this story no longer how long I go without updating, and you haven't forgotten it, so go you! As always, your feedback is appreciated, so let me know what you thought. Finally, thank you Croniklerx for editing this and catching the different spelling, grammatical, and character errors and preventing me from subjecting them to you.


	12. Chapter 12

Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Twelve

"He had lost control. But he didn't care. They wanted him to feel. He would _feel_ , then! They wanted him to laugh? He would laugh as they burned!"  
-The Gathering Storm

Wardes walked through the night, bones crunching under his boots. No, it wasn't night. The night had stars. This was … a cave? Regardless, he knew exactly where he was.

When he had first arrived in hell, he had sat and waited for whatever divine or diabolical punishment in store for him, and tried to understand his death.

Soujiro had disappeared as soon as the fight started, but Wardes had known he was still there by the destruction his path had left on the walls. Wardes had his spell set up, making him immune to any attack from a sword.

Then the sword had started to glow, and Wardes' magic, his spells, his power … it meant nothing.

Magic was the pinnacle of human achievement and the foundation of society throughout Halkeginia, but when that dull, rusted sword had begun to shine like the sun over a new world, it all fell apart.

Wardes had died in that moment, literally in _one_ moment. It hadn't even hurt, and a more charitable man than himself would have appreciated that mercy.

Instead he stood in hell and walked through the darkness. His eyes adjusted, somehow, to this lightless world, and he could see upon what he tread. He kept walking, unsure what he'd find. Maybe he wouldn't find anything at all. Maybe this unholy void _was_ the torment he had earned.

Part of his mind had fallen asleep while the rest of him walked. The rhythmic crunching beneath him grew hypnotic, and life had left him tired. He wondered if he would run into any of his dead friends in this abyss, but he doubted it. While he had sent many of his enemies to hell, his friends were all better than he was.

He had nearly passed by the first person in his path before noticing him. The man was sitting on a pile of skulls, wearing a robe embroidered with eyes, and had a blindfold on over his face. His gaunt face smiled.

"I take it you're new here," he said.

Wardes stopped and stared at him. He normally ignored people such as this stranger, but here he had no title or status worth a copper, and his life of indifference and disdain had gotten him nowhere he had wanted to go.

"Here," Wardes said, "being hell, I presume."

The man smiled. "Why? Were you a saint?"

Hardly. He had killed his own mother as a child. It was an accident that his father had covered up, but he pushed, she fell, and the technicalities between murder and manslaughter offered little solace. In a few more years, he might have made up for that and his countless later sins, but here he was, damned and out of time.

"I was expecting flames."

The blind man tilted his head. "Is that so? No, that would be too easy. We don't get to sit back and let something else torment us. We have to do all the work ourselves."

"So what _does_ happen here?" Wardes saw a dreary landscape in every direction, but that was far from horrible.

"We remember," the blind man said. "Memory doesn't fade here like it did in life." He ran his fingers across his blindfold. "If anything, I remember my past now better than I ever did when I was alive."

Wardes considered that. "That seems a mild torment for my sins."

The stranger laughed, weak, raspy, and bitter. "You are _new_." He said _new_ like _fool_. "Very well, I will tell you a story, Mr. …?"

He had no interest in stories, but courtesy was ingrained in him. "Wardes," he said.

"Usui," the blind man said. "Let me tell you a story, Wardes. Your story. You traveled along a road, and each day you picked up something and left something else behind. You found friends, but you were not your friends. You found enemies, but you were not your enemies, either. You found terrors and regrets, hopes and sorrows, lies and ideals, but you were none of those things, so as time went by, you left all of those things behind. On the day you were born, you picked up a thing called life, and on the day you died you left that behind. Here, there is nothing left to find, and hour by hour you will lose everything that you are not, until you have nothing left to hide you from that thing you have always been." He paused. "Unless, of course, you leave first."

Wardes raised an eyebrow, though the expression was lost on the man. "Why? Is there a way out?"

Usui chuckled. "Yes, newcomer. Soon, we are all leaving."

WWW

Louise shouldn't have been surprised at her most recent failure. Princess Henrietta had asked her to come back with information on the Reconquista in the form of documents or a veteran, and instead of results she had excuses. The excuse of having one of the finest knights in Tristain try to kill her was a heavy one, but that would only pin the blame on the Princess, and Louise would rather keep it for herself.

More immediately, Wardes had killed Prince Wales after Louise had vouched for him before the Royalists. She had nothing to do with it, but she knew how that argument would go. _Yes, I know he came with me and I said he was okay, but I had no idea he was going to murder your Prince!_ Right.

So Louise avoided that conversation and fled like the guilty murderer she very much was not, and left through Newcastle's secret exit. Yes, the place had one, a massive underground tunnel that a ship could sail through. How the Royalists had managed to keep it a secret from the Reconquista, she had no idea. Maybe it was new? There hadn't been a need for a secret tunnel before the civil war, so it had to be.

Unfortunately, the tunnel was pitch black and straight down. Anyone in a ship would be fine—heck, any half decent mage could have flown down—but Louise had to _climb_ down with her hands and feet like a commoner. A small, terrified commoner with an intense fear of heights and dark places.

"Are you still there?" she asked the darkness.

"Sure thing, Miss Louise," Soujiro answered. "I'm right beneath you."

"I bet you've been looking up my skirt the whole time," she said, _wishing_ that was all she had to worry about.

"How would I do that?" he asked, sounding so innocent Louise would have assumed it false coming from anyone else. "I can't even see my own hands."

Neither could she. The light from the top of the tunnel seemed as far away as the moons already, and she had no idea how far they had left before it leveled out. It _would_ level out eventually, wouldn't it? Oh Founder, what if it didn't? If they were in Tristain it would, but they were in Albion. Albion was a floating island so for all she knew, the hole would go straight down to the bottom.

"How do you find your way?" she asked, trying not to think about it.

Soujiro laughed. "I can still feel."

 _Yes,_ she thought, groping around in the darkness for handholds and footholds. _Yes you can._ The fact that she had to be told that spoke poorly of her. If she had summoned a dog, then she would have seen it bark, whimper, and wag its tail, and she would have known what her familiar was feeling.

That wasn't true with Soujiro. He could smile all day long, behead a corrupt nobleman at night, and be smiling again the next morning. When they began their mission, if Louise had had to guess which one of them was most likely to go insane and start killing people, she would not have chosen Wardes, and that too spoke poorly of her. Soujiro could feel, and she had seen the tears to prove it.

She would have to get him something nice when they got back to make up for it. "Hey, Soujiro," she said. "What's something you've always wanted but never had?"

"I don't know. Always is a long time to want something."

Right. She remembered the joys of talking to her familiar. "What's something you want right now, then?"

"Huh. I can't really think of anything. How about you?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said sarcastically. "Not being here would be nice."

"Then it's a good thing we're moving!"

She rolled her eyes. "If you slip and fall, scream all the way down so I know how far the bottom is."

He laughed. "Sure thing, Miss Louise!"

He spoke like it was all a game, but she was starting to get worried. What if the tunnel didn't have a bottom? She had a mental image of herself dangling from the underside of Albion with nothing below her but clouds, and she felt sick. They should have tried to sneak out over the walls, but Louise had wanted to be _clever_. Now she had no idea how much further she had to go, and she was too tired to climb back up. There was nothing she _could_ do beside continue on the foolish path she had chosen and hope for the best.

Then the bit of rock she had been holding onto pulled free and she fell screaming.

She had expected time to slow down and for her whole life to flash before her eyes. Instead, she had enough time for one single thought.

 _I'm going to die._

Soujiro caught her and held onto her as rocks rained down on both of them, all without losing his grip with his other hand. Of course, he had never shown any sign of human limitations before, so why should he start now?

A light appeared above her, so bright she couldn't see anything else.

"Hello?" a someone said. "Louise? Soujiro?" Wait, she recognized that voice! "You found them! Good job, Verdandi. Say, are you two going spelunking?"

WWW

Guiche, Kirche, and Tabitha had come back for them, and Guiche's familiar could track valuable gems like the ring Princess Henrietta had given Louise. Kirche and Tabitha had camped out under Sylphid's wings while Guiche's familiar dug its way toward Louise and Soujiro, who were _not_ going spelunking, and that was all the explanation that Louise would listen to or offer until after she had a good night's sleep.

WWW

Guiche took first watch. It was the _gentlemanly_ thing to do, and no one would say that Guiche de Gramont did not pull his weight. Hopefully, his actions would help bury his shame from the La Rochelle incident.

 _Hiding behind girls and commoners, without even a scar to prove your courage, for you had_ none _._

Guiche shook that thought away. What was he supposed to have done? That man—blind, covered in scars, laughter, and madness—had ignited half the town and was a square-class mage at least. It was … humbling, to say the least, for Guiche to see how he compared to the true monsters of the world. Not at all how a hero should.

"Nice night, isn't it?"

Guiche jumped about a foot in the air and squealed like—like a dashing young nobleman. He caught his breath and composed himself. "Soujiro. You're up."

He smiled. "So are you."

Guiche stood up straighter. "I'm keeping watch," he said, as though it were a noble task.

"Neat. Have you seen anything yet?"

It was easy to remember that Soujiro was just a commoner. It was harder to remember that Soujiro was fast enough to kill someone in the time it took to blink. "No, but you can't be too careful. There are beasts in these woods, demihumans, mercenaries, deserters, bandits, all sorts of enemies who might wish us harm."

"So what do you do if you see one?"

"I will … alert the others." That sounded more heroic in his head.

Soujiro nodded, but he made no move to go back to a bed (or at least a series of adjacent bed rolls) next to three attractive women. Since arriving in Albion, the girls had forgone propriety in favor of unsupervised practicality, and Guiche had not objected—indeed, he had not managed any coherent thought concerning the entire affair.

Still, the idea that Soujiro could charge a square-class mage and shy away from a few sleeping, nubile women both amused and bemused him. "Soujiro," he said finally, "what do you think is the nature of courage?"

The commoner shrugged. "I don't know, I've never tried it. It seems like a waste of energy to be honest."

Guiche blinked. "What? Courage is a waste of …" He shook his head. "You say that, but I have never seen you do anything cowardly."

"You haven't? Okay then."

"So …"

"What?"

"Explain."

"Oh." He shifted on the rock he was sitting on. "Courage is when you're afraid to do something, but you do it anyway, right? You need to be at least as brave as you are afraid, or you'll just do something cowardly instead. But being afraid exhausts you, and if you have to be brave on top of that, it exhausts you even more. It's a lot simpler to just skip being afraid in the first place."

Guiche considered that. His words managed to make a queer amount of sense, despite making no sense at all. "So how do you _decide_ not to be afraid?"

He shrugged again. "How do you decide to blink? No one controls how you feel but you."

Guiche frowned. He actually sounded a bit like Montmorency, who always blamed him when she caught him looking at other women, as though he _decided_ to fall in love seven times a day. He had two shining eyes and one lusty heart, and it wasn't like he could stop feeling on demand. Could he?

"So anyway," Soujiro said, "I was thinking. Mages like you get magic back by sleeping, right? So why don't you go to sleep and let me take over?"

Guiche glanced back at Sylphid. There were three of them now. Kirche was gorgeous and flirtatious, but not as open as she pretended to be. Tabitha didn't seem to mind when his hands wandered—as his hands sometimes did—but she also didn't always notice when Sylphid tried to eat him. And Louise … Louise was dangerous.

Still, there was a lot to be said for quantity, and while he might be outnumbered, Guiche de Gramont was _not_ outmanned. He hoped.

"That makes sense," he said, standing up. He was only a dot-class mage, so while he had more skill than the legendarily bad Louise the Zero, Kirche and Tabitha were the only two triangles in the school, and he would need as much rest as he could get if he wanted to impress them. "So you're taking my shift, and in a few hours you should wake up Kirche, and I expect her to trade off with Tabitha after that."

"Okay."

He hesitated. "Now, I'm not very familiar with commoners," he said to the commoner familiar, "but you people _do_ need sleep eventually, correct?"

Soujiro nodded. "Eventually."

"And you're not planning on staying up all night in a self-sacrificing attempt to accommodate your betters, right?"

He laughed. "You're funny, Mr. Guiche."

Guiche frowned, but he couldn't _directly_ reject a compliment. His father raised him better than that.

"Really," Soujiro continued, "I know that I won't be able to get any sleep anyway until it stops raining, so I might as well help out."

Guiche nodded, but he frowned again and looked up at the clear night sky. "It's not raining at all."

Soujiro looked up as though surprised at the stars. "Oh, it stopped? Huh. Well, it will start up again before you know it. The weather in this country is weird."

Guiche considered that, but he hadn't been in Albion long enough to contradict the boy. Besides, he had his own challenges to face. Three of them, sleeping peacefully. Could he sneak a cuddle, or would he die trying? He strode toward Sylphid, feeling for all the world like an adventurous rogue from a storybook trying to steal a dragon's treasure.

 _It's alright, Guiche,_ he told himself. _You're charming, you're talented, and you're devilishly good looking. You got this._

WWW

The next morning Louise felt grimy, sore, and like her neck and back had been twisted into knots while she had slept, and she had managed to wake up more tired than when she had fallen asleep.

Then there was how everyone seemed extra cheerful that morning, which left Louise feeling even grumpier. Oh, look! The great outdoors! Nature! Fresh air! _Die, die, die._

For breakfast, Tabitha caught fish from a nearby river by freezing them and levitating them out of the water, Kirche started a fire, and Guiche made a knife which Soujiro used to clean the fish, while Louise sat by herself feeling useless, but what else was new?

She did her best to feel sorry for herself. It was easy, and the alternative was thinking about Soujiro with his hands covered in fish blood and slime, gutting their breakfast with practiced efficiency.

 _He's a murderer, an assassin. That's nothing to be proud of, but you accepted that when you ordered him to kill._ And she _did_ order him to kill. He had waited until she gave him permission.

As soon as they were ready to eat, Sylphid returned from her hunt with a deer in her mouth and began tearing into it with cheerful savagery.

Louise made a face. "I'm sorry, Tabitha, but can you make your dragon do that somewhere else?"

Tabitha considered that and nodded, but made no move to send Sylphid away. Louise sighed, steeled herself, and bit into her fish. Somehow, it was dry. She didn't know how you could do that to something that had lived its whole life underwater, but it was. She chewed and swallowed. No salt, no sides, and it had been looking at her a few minutes ago. Yay, nature.

"So," Kirche said. "What happened? The last we saw you guys, you, your hot fiancé, and your cute familiar were sailing off into the sunset, you know, if the sun set in the—"

"Kirche kissed Soujiro!" Guiche blurted out.

Louise blinked. "What? _What?_ "

Guiche shrank down. "Sorry."

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Nice one, Guiche."

His shoulders sank. "I couldn't handle the pressure."

"Five words you'll never hear a girl say to you."

Louise pointed her finger at her. "Explain."

Kirche shrugged. "Well, there's not much else to tell."

"What part of 'stay away from my familiar' didn't you understand?"

"The part where I was supposed to care."

Louise turned on Soujiro. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"They don't have this kind of fish where I'm from," he said. "It's gamey. I like it."

"You kissed her?"

He considered that and shook his head. "Nope."

"What?"

"I don't remember kissing her at all. I remember her kissing me though."

"It's no big deal," Kirche said. "I've kissed nearly every guy in the school."

"What about me?" Guiche asked. "You haven't kissed me. Not that I'm interested, of course. I have a girlfriend. It's a very satisfying relationship."

"Soujiro," Louise said, "new rule. From now on, you're not allowed to let anyone kiss you unless I say so."

"Okay."

"You know, Louise," Kirche said, "if he really was yours, you wouldn't need to tell him to be good."

"Shut-up, Kirche. You're a bad influence on him and you know it."

She smirked. "You got that right. So now that we got your power trip out of the way, what happened? Did you get to meet Prince Wales? Was he as hot as they say? And what happened to Wardes?"

Louise sighed. Kirche had put herself at risk to come help her. They all had. But Founder, sometimes the girl got on her nerves. Still, there was something _pleasant_ about hating her, like being at home. Kirche might tease her, but she would never try to kill her, and by hating her Louise could pretend that a little teasing was the worse she had to worry about.

Of course, she'd bite her own tongue out before saying that out loud. "Yes, we made it to Newcastle and we met Prince Wales. Then Wardes killed him."

"What?" Kirche asked. " _What?_ But … _why_?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "He didn't make much sense near the end. Either he was a traitor or just crazy. Then he tried to kill me and Soujiro killed him."

Kirche blinked. "Oh. So is that all? _Founder_ , Louise, that's …"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"One heck of a dramatic break up." No one questioned her on Soujiro defeating Wardes, but each one of them glanced his way. Odd. She had been expecting more surprise. "So, now what?"

Louise looked at the half eaten fish in her hands and couldn't bring herself to finish it. "Well, the whole point of the mission was to gain information about the Reconquista or bring back an expert on them." Officially, at least. Louise suspected that Henrietta had just wanted to give Wales the chance to save himself without dishonor. "But that's not going to happen. There's not much else we can do besides go home so I can tell the Princess that I … failed completely." Her lower lip trembled, and she bit it to keep it in place.

"There is something we can do," Soujiro said.

Louise looked at him. "What?"

"Well, this was basically a recruitment mission," he said. "My last boss used to send me on these all the time, but it didn't always work out no matter what I did. Sometimes the target wasn't interested in working for someone else, or maybe he was already dead. I didn't like coming back with bad news, so whenever I left on that sort of mission, I would stop by Mr. Hoji's office and ask him if there was anyone in that part of the country Mr. Shishio didn't like. That way if the mission didn't work out, I could kill someone on the way back and tell him that even though he didn't make any friends, at least one more of his enemies was dead."

Guiche stared at him with wide eyes, Kirche's mouth was hanging open, and Tabitha's expression was … unreadable, but Soujiro ignored them. "So sure, our _official_ mission didn't work out, but if there's someone around here Princess Henrietta wants dead, I'm sure we can find a way to cheer her up."

"Okay," Kirche said. "What. The. Heck?"

Louise couldn't help but smile at her discomfort. "Before I summoned him, he was an assassin."

She blinked. "What? Really?"

Soujiro nodded, smiling pleasantly.

"You're an assassin," she said. "But _I'm_ a bad influence. This is crazy. Your first solution to solve a problem is to _kill_ someone."

He shrugged. "Well, it _is_ the oldest trick in the book."

"Louise, please, say something sane. Your familiar's freaking me out."

Without meaning to, Louise let out a giggle. She covered her mouth immediately. "Sorry, the last few days have been very surreal for me. Ahem. Prince Wales died opposing the Reconquista. Princess Henrietta sent me here because of the threat of the Reconquista. If the leader of the Reconquista were to, um, _die_ , then that would at least give us more time to work with."

"Okay," Soujiro said. "Let's kill him, then."

"But it _is_ crazy." Founder, she was agreeing with Kirche now. "They've pretty much conquered Albion right now, and I don't think they're going to let us murder their glorious leader."

"Oh," he said slowly. "So you're saying that killing people without their consent … is wrong."

"No!" Louise said. "Well, yes. Usually. But that's not the point." The Academy had offered a course on ethics last semester, but like an idiot she had gone for history instead because the Valliére name was in the textbook more frequently. "I'm saying that it's impossible."

"No it isn't." Soujiro sometimes questioned her for clarification, but she couldn't remember him ever contradicting her. "It's the simplest thing in the the world."

"No!" Kirche said. "No, no, no! Soujiro, darling, could you do something cute again? Because you are seriously messing with my image of you."

"This is who he is," Louise said. "You can't change him into what you thought he was just by wishing it." She was aware of the hypocrisy of that statement, but no one else was so it was fine. She turned to her familiar. "But you can't argue with the facts. There are five of us, and they have armies."

He shrugged. "An army has never stopped me before."

She blinked. "What?"

"Mr. Shishio never bothered with armies. He always said they were slow, expensive, and not too good at their job. Fighting with one is like trying to chop a tree down with a stick and only slightly smarter than laying siege. The Reconquista does both, so we'll be fine."

Louise tried to figure out Soujiro's mental arithmetic, then decided that he had probably skipped that. "Okay, so how does this … _thing_ usually work?"

"We find him, kill him, and leave. The first part is the only hard one. I once spent months trying to find a hermit living in the mountains before I found out that it was just a practical joke to have me kill someone who didn't exist—it's a great story, I'll have to tell you some time—but you can't lead a revolution while being hard to find, so like I said, it's the easiest thing in the world."

Louise frowned. "You'd think that getting away alive would be the hardest part."

"Not really," he said. "Sometimes I try to kill the target when he's alone so I'm gone by the time someone finds the body, but most of the time I just run."

"This all seems far too simplified."

He shrugged. "If you're weak, you die. It can't get simpler."

The off-hand way he said that made her feel sick, but her mother had always lectured her on the Rule of Steel, so she steeled herself. "Princess Henrietta was worried that the Reconquista would attack Tristain after they took over Albion, but if we kill their leader, choosing a successor would at least slow them down."

She had nothing to base that on. She didn't even know who the leader of the Reconquista was, let alone what his successor would be like. Ideally they'd split into factions and spend the next decade in a civil war that left the rest of Halkeginia alone, but for all she knew they might just replace their current leader with someone worse.

But the alternative was to return to Tristain and tell the Princess how she had failed. She had failed in front of her family and in front of her classmates, but she would _not_ fail in front of the Princess.

"You know what?" Kirche said. "Let's vote on this. I say we do the not crazy thing, and go home while we're still alive."

"And I vote to assassinate the evil warlord," Louise said. "It's his fault my fiancé tried to murder me, and I take that sort of thing personally. How about you, Soujiro?"

"Hold on," Kirche said. "We can't let him vote. It wouldn't be fair."

"Why not?"

"Because he's your familiar. He's not going to vote against you where you can hear him. It would be like letting Guiche's mole vote." Kirche turned to Soujiro. "No offense, cutey, I still love you."

"None taken."

Guiche cleared his throat. "I would also like to forfeit my right to vote in this matter. I learned long ago to never have opinions where beautiful women are involved. That has gotten me this fair, and I'm not going to ruin a good thing now."

"An odd number works better in this situation anyway," Kirche said. "Tabitha? Break this tie!"

Louise sighed inwardly. Of course Tabitha was going to side with her best friend. Still, there was no reason why Louise would have to go along with the outcome. From what Soujiro had said, assassinations weren't that complicated, so they might be able to do it by themselves. Getting out of Albion without Tabitha's dragon would be a problem, though.

"Assassinate," Tabitha said.

Kirche smiled before she realized what Tabitha had said. "What? Are you serious?"

Tabitha nodded.

"But why?"

"Arithmetic."

"Arithmetic. That's all you have to say."

She nodded.

"Arithmetic. Fantastic." Kirche sighed. "Okay, let's go murder someone. Great."

WWW

They found the leader of the Reconquista, Oliver Cromwell, without even trying. He wasn't hiding—he had _never_ been hiding, and after Newcastle fell, he named himself Emperor of Albion.

They traveled to Londinium, Albion's capital city, under the pretense of being lower class nobility or upper class commoners trying to protect their mercantile interests with the settling kingdom, not that many cared to ask. The locals were celebrating, and Louise had met maybe five sober people since they arrived.

Emperor Cromwell was scheduled to give a speech the next day. Everyone in Londinium would be there, far more than the guards could keep track of. Besides, even if the people weren't caught up in the throes of patriotic victory, everyone knew that commoners weren't dangerous.

For now, Louise had to focus on the hardest part of the plan: falling asleep.

She tried to fantasize about her heroic return. _You know how you sent me to find out more about the Reconquista? Well, I kind of ended them instead._ She'd be _smug_ when she got back. She had never been smug about one of her accomplishments before, and was viciously looking forward to the opportunity.

Unfortunately, her imagination kept on veering towards the worst case scenario where they failed, ended up captured and killed, and the Reconquista used their assassination attempt as an excuse to invade Tristain.

She rolled over on the lumpy straw mattress. Pretending to be common had seemed great on paper (they were nearly out of money), but it was worse on straw. One small room, one small bed, one small window, and one small candle. There was supposedly some peasant trick to light candles without magic, but for the life of her Louise couldn't figure out what it was.

She rolled over again and looked at Soujiro, sitting on the floor next to her bed. "Are you awake?" she asked.

"Yes I am, Miss Louise," he said, sounding cheerful.

"I can't sleep either." She hesitated, trying to figure out how to phrase what she wanted to say without sounding like Kirche. "You can sleep in the bed with me if you want. I know you won't try anything weird."

"Thank you, but I've always slept better sitting up."

Louise rolled her eyes. He _would_ be unable to take a hint. "I take it back. Everything you do is weird."

He laughed. "I suppose it is."

What kind of response was that? Was her familiar incapable of standing up for himself? Or did he just choose not to? When she had first summoned him, she simply took him for a commoner who knew his place but now … for all she knew, he saw her as a butterfly that had landed on his finger, too small and weak to be concerned about.

After all this time, she barely knew him at all.

"Soujiro," she said. "How did you become an assassin?" No. Assassin wasn't the right word. An assassin could kill you in your sleep, but Soujiro could defeat a square-class mage in a fair fight. What was the term he had used? _Hitokiri_.

"I told you. Mr. Shishio taught me."

"No, don't tell me the _event_. Tell me the story. How did you become, well, you?"

For a moment there was only silence. "Ah," he said finally. "Well, I suppose it started when I was born."

Louise groaned inwardly. Well, she _was_ having trouble sleeping.

"My mother was a prostitute, and my father was rich. His family didn't want me running around making them look bad by existing in public, so they took me in to keep people quiet, but they never wanted me there. I was never one of them, you know? I remember they used to hit me a lot. If I wasn't working hard enough, they'd hit me, if I broke something, they'd hit me, if I cried, they'd hit me. I learned to stop crying real quick, and I noticed that when I smiled they left me alone more." He laughed. "I've pretty much been smiling ever since.

"But anyway, when I was … seven? Eightish? Around that time, I first met Mr. Shishio. He was already an outlaw, and he was in one of his moods where he kills everyone in his way. He was about to run his sword through me, but then he changed his mind. I think he was confused why I was smiling instead of screaming like people usually did, because I did that a lot. He ended up living in my family's shed … and we talked."

He fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "You know, I think he was the first person I ever really talked to. Everything before that was just, 'Do this, do that, don't ask stupid questions.' I knew rice and I knew work, but I didn't know … _people_. Everything I know about people, I learned from him.

"I always thought that my family hit me because they were embarrassed to have a bastard in the family, but that was just something they told me. The truth was they beat me because they could. They were strong, I was weak, so they could do whatever they wanted. If you're strong, you live. If you're weak, you die. Everything else is make believe.

"Of course, I was a little kid at the time and I loved make believe, so when Mr. Shishio gave me a sword, I didn't know what to do with it. The idea of being strong like him … it scared me. I didn't want to be killed, but I didn't want to kill either, and being the stupid little kid like I was, I thought I had a third option.

"Then my family tried to kill me, and I had to choose. Maybe they found out that I was hiding Mr. Shishio in the shed, or maybe they just figured that if there was a wanted murderer in the area, they could kill whoever they wanted and blame him. I ran crying for help, knowing that Mr. Shishio was strong enough to kill them all without trying, but he didn't come. Saving weak people who are just going to die anyway is silly, but he gave me what I needed to save myself, and that was enough. So then I grabbed the sword he gave me, and I chose to live.

"I remember … I remember the rain washing their blood off the sword after I was done, then Mr. Shishio offered to make me his apprentice, and I started traveling with him."

"That's horrible!" Louise said.

"Oh. Okay."

"No, I mean … nevermind." She thought back to her own family. Some parents claimed to love all their children equally, but hers had never bothered to pretend. Louise was the least favorite daughter, and an embarrassment to the family name. But she knew her parents would _never_ try to kill her. "You told me that you stopped working for him before I summoned you. What made you quit?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "Do you ever have those times where you know you have to do something, but you don't really know why? Like how a baby knows it wants to eat, but doesn't understand what it means to starve to death? It was like that. Part of it was from someone I fought. During the Revolution, Mr. Shishio was the government's top _hitokiri_ , but before him there was another, who might have been even stronger. When Mr. Shishio tried to seize power, the government sent Mr. Himura after us, and I got to fight him twice.

"And let me tell you, _nothing_ about that guy made sense. In the war, he had killed as many people as Mr. Shishio, but he had spent the next ten years becoming a 'sword that protects the weak.' He was a grown man, possibly the only one in the country who could threaten Mr. Shishio, and he had dedicated his life to the sort of make believe I had outgrown when I was seven! And he was completely serious about it, too. I couldn't even call him a real swordsman after hearing him talk, but he was strong enough to say whatever he liked.

"Our first fight ended with a tie, but the second time he beat me, and I started questioning a few things. I've killed enough people weaker than me to know that Mr. Shishio was right, and I'm sure that Mr. Himura had too during the war, but it takes a special kind of strength to believe something you know is false. And the idea that the weak have just as much right to live as the strong when the world is _shaped_ to kill them off, and that people should be saved even when they aren't strong enough to save themselves … it's nonsense, but it's the sort of nonsense that sticks with you.

"That was part of the reason I left. The other part is everything I ever believed had been given to me. I could recite those ideals perfectly, but they weren't _mine._ Mr. Shishio didn't fight with second-hand convictions, he _earned_ them, and I'm sure Mr. Himura earned his too. But me? You asked me earlier how I became me, but I'm not sure I've done that yet. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a bunch of bits and pieces of people I've met along the way."

Louise chewed on that mentally. Sometimes she wanted to just call her familiar crazy and move on, but other times she almost understood him. Still, she was sure that no one else had to deal with a familiar with those kinds of issues, so she had no idea why she ended up with him.

Actually, that was a fair question. Out of all the familiars she could have summoned, what did it mean that she got him? Was she supposed to understand what was wrong with him and make him less crazy? If so, the Founder had far more faith in her than she merited. Louise had never made sense of anyone in her entire life. She never had to. Everyone she met already came in nice, sensible packages until Soujiro came around. And noble society didn't cure insanity; they just stuffed crazies in the basement and hoped the neighbors didn't talk.

Louise realized she was thinking about this backwards. When had a mage ever summoned a familiar for the familiar's benefit? Sometimes the familiar was better off, but the point of the summoning ritual was to help the mage. The real question was what was did it mean that someone like Soujiro with a traumatic childhood, a twisted morality, and a work history of homicide was what she needed?

He could kill. He had been trained to kill, and had been taught to see it as right. Louise understood that such things were necessary—the honor of the Valliére household and most of the old noble families was built upon valor in battle—but she herself was too weak to fight. Was that what she needed, someone strong enough to fight for her and twisted enough to not ask why?

Well, that was what she was using him for. When she told him to kill Wardes, that was in self defense, but now she was planning an assassination. There were dozens of reasons why someone like Cromwell needed to die, the murder of Prince Wales and the wellbeing of Tristain being only two of them, but did Soujiro care about any of those?

"Soujiro?" she said after a moment. "What is it like to kill someone?"

"It only hurts if you let it."

His sing-song tone of voice made it hard for her to catch what he meant at first. "Does it hurt you?"

"It did the first time," he admitted.

"What did you do?"

"I smiled until I stopped hurting, same as always. I got better at it as I went along, and eventually I could go without feeling anything at all."

After his fight with Wardes, there were tears on his face. "Did it hurt when you killed Wardes?"

"Yes."

Louise sat up in her bed. "Why? He was trying to kill us! He had already killed Prince Wales. If anyone's death could be justified, it was his."

He paused. "What do you mean by justified?"

"I—well, _justice._ He was evil. If I was strong enough to kill him, you can bet that I wouldn't feel bad about it afterwards."

"Because he was evil?"

She hesitated. "Yes?" That sounded weak. "Yes."

"Could you kill me without feeling bad?"

"What? Of course not! You're my familiar."

"I've probably killed more people than Wardes has. If he's evil, then I am to, aren't I?"

"You're not evil; you're my friend."

He cocked his head. "Is that the difference between good and evil, then? People you like and people you don't?"

"What? No, I'm saying that if you _were_ evil, I wouldn't … you're avoiding the question!"

"Am I? Oh, right. Why. Because Wardes was strong."

She frowned. "So you feel bad about killing people who can fight back, but you're fine killing people who can't?"

He paused. "I suppose so."

" _What?_ "

"Is that odd?"

"Very."

He paused again. "It's like this. I am the best swordsman I've ever met, but there are two people I couldn't beat. The first was Mr. Shishio. I'm faster than he is, but he is _smart._ He can counter any attack and pierce any defense, and I'd have to run twice as fast as him just to keep up. The second was Mr. Himura, and he fought with all his heart. In strict swordsmanship, I was stronger then either of them, but they were _focused_ in ways I can barely describe while I was half asleep. If I'm fighting someone weak, I can win without waking up all the way, but when I fight someone strong like Wardes, I have to think, and I have to _feel._ "

Louise rolled over and stared at the ceiling. "It only hurts if it's a challenge. What about tomorrow? Will it hurt to kill Cromwell?"

Soujiro shrugged. "I don't know how strong he his, but it's definitely going to hurt him to die, so it's only fair. We can stop and go home instead if you want to, though. I don't care either way."

"No," she said quickly. "No." Killing Cromwell was the right move. He had started the Reconquista, caused the death of Prince Wales, and if his talk of reuniting Halkeginia was anything more than rhetoric, he would be a threat to Tristain, too. Compared to that, a few tears, even from someone she cared about, was a good trade.

Right?

She kept telling herself that as she fell asleep.

WWW

"For the record," Kirche said the next day, "this is a bad idea. A really, _really_ bad idea. I don't even think I should be talking about the idea out loud because it is _just that bad_."

Soujiro laughed. "That's silly. You're just saying that because you've never killed anyone before."

" _No_. No I have not. Soujiro, darling, I'm pretty sure you're the only one at the table who has. Guiche is a total weenie, Louise is all talk, Tabitha just likes books, and I am a longtime advocate of making love instead of war."

Soujiro suspected that Tabitha was more like him and Wardes than Kirche suggested, but he didn't press the point. "Then take advantage of my years of experience when I tell you that you guys have nothing to worry about. Honestly, I usually just improvise these things on the go, but we are ridiculously prepared for this. We've planned every step of the way, we have an escape route, and we even ate breakfast first."

He was pretty sure he was the only one who enjoyed breakfast, though. Tabitha nibbled at it while reading one of the many books she had brought along, but the others didn't even do that. Louise closed her eyes and kept on chanting, "Rule of Steel," to herself over and over again, Kirche forgot to flirt with the waiter, and Guiche excused himself to the washroom where Soujiro was pretty sure he started retching.

But the escape route was a nice touch that they could all agree on. Traditionally Soujiro's escape route was a running start, but Guiche came up with the idea of digging a hole, and it all went from there. They, or rather Kirche, explained to the innkeeper that they needed to use his yard for legitimate but unexplainable reasons, and the innkeeper agreed not to disturb them as long as they cleaned up after themselves and paid extra. Pretty soon they had a hole that went all the way to the outside of the city, so they wouldn't have to deal with walls or guards on the way out.

The nice innkeeper could wind up dead for unknowingly assisting in the assassination of the emperor, but Soujior didn't see the point in bringing that up.

They went outside to join the celebration. This one was far different from the one a few nights ago in Newcastle. Instead of a bunch of old soldiers cheerfully awaiting their last battle and imminent doom, the inhabitants of Londinium cheered their past victory against the Royalist and looked forward to a bright and glorious future.

As they moved closer to their destination, the streets grew more and more crowded. At least half of the people who brushed against Kirche's breasts did so on accident, and even if the four of them (Guiche had stayed behind to guard their retreat) didn't know where to go, they could have just let the mass of people shove them them forward until they made it to the town square.

Soujiro eyed the defenses, such as they were. There was a stage at the center of the square for public executions and other announcements, though the standard gallows had been dismantled to make room for the new emperor. Two rows of guards stood around the stage and along the road to the palace to keep the enthusiastic masses from getting in the way, though Soujiro was too far away to make out any useful details through the crowd.

The mass of people erupted into a cheer as the emperor arrived. Soujiro stood on his toes and craned his neck, but he could just barely make out the imperial carriage. He considered climbing up on something for a better view, but that would draw too much attention to himself. From where he stood, he could see a lot of white and gold on both the carriage and the six horses that pulled it, though only the horses had feathers. They even had wings, as wide as Wardes' griffon. He doubted that they could fly very well harnessed to a cart, but they still looked pretty.

The first man to board the stage wasn't Emperor Cromwell, but an announcer, introducing the emperor and working excitement into the crowd. He spoke of Cromwell's victories, and the people's victories in supporting him, and he hinted of future victories to come. The crowd all seemed to know when to cheer, when to laugh, and when, should the situation demand it, jeer.

"I can barely see anything," Soujiro said. "I'm going to try to get closer."

Louise nodded. "Alright. Let's go."

He hesitated. "It might be best if the rest of you stay near the back, just in case something goes wrong."

She frowned and fixed him with a hard look. She wasn't very strong in a fight, but she was one of the most stubborn people Soujiro knew. "You're not going alone." The corners of her lips twitched in a smile. "Just in case something goes wrong."

He considered that. He had never been part of a team before. Well, he had, but the point of the Juppongatana had been because he _couldn't_ be everywhere at once instead of him ever needing help on a mission. Still, there was nothing wrong with trying new things. Besides, every time Soujiro had met him, Mr. Himura always had a friend at his side, whether it was the police officer, the Oniwaban girl, or the tall guy who liked to punch things.

He shrugged and smiled at Tabitha. "Would you like to come with me?" he asked.

She nodded wordlessly.

"Wait, why her?" Louise asked.

"She's quiet and fast." She was also decent in a fight and had at least some experience killing people. Meanwhile, no matter how quiet they were, Louise and Kirche had loud presences, but he left that out.

"Alright," Louise said. "But promise me you won't do anything stupid."

He laughed. "Of course I won't." If he thought what he was going to do was stupid, he wouldn't do it. He squeezed through a gap in the crowd as gently as he could, and Tabitha made her way behind him.

WWW

Louise watched them go. Guiche had stayed behind, so the only one she had left with her was Kirche. Lovely.

"So what did she mean by arithmetic?" Louise asked.

"Hmm?"

"When we were voting about what to do. Her only reason was 'arithmetic.' What did that mean?"

"Oh. She thinks we might be able save more lives than we, you know, don't save. Prevent a war and all that, greater good. She has this thing called 'logic,' you know? I never touch the stuff myself, but it works for her."

Louise nodded. She was focused on what was best for Princess Henrietta and Tristain, but Tabitha wasn't from Tristain. For that matter, neither was Kriche.

"So why are you here?"

She looked down at her and smiled. "Isn't it obvious? Soujiro. He is a _ridiculously_ good kisser."

Louise scowled. "See, I might fall for that, but I've kissed him too, and I know for a fact that's a lie. He just stands there politely until you're done. 'Oh, a girl is kissing me. That's nice. And would you look at that cloud!'" She rolled her eyes.

"Maybe I'm just more engaging than you are."

"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine."

"Okay, okay." She harrumphed. "See if I ever try to have fun at _your_ expense again. Logic."

"Logic? That's why you're here?"

"Yup."

"But you just said you never touched the stuff."

Kirche gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Precisely."

WWW

"So how long have you been a _hitokiri_?"

"Confused." Tabitha's voice wasn't just quiet, it was pitched just right to blend into the background noise of the breathing of the crowd, the rustling of people's clothes, and the wind itself unless you were listening for it.

"Oh, sorry, that's just what they call people who do this sort of thing where I'm from. I don't think _assassin_ has the right connotation, though."

She nodded. "Three years."

"Not bad. I've been doing this for ten, but I'm not from here, so I'm likely to make a least a few more mistakes before I figure out all the rules.

She nodded again, but didn't seem too interested in making conversation. That was fine, because the announcer finished announcing and Cromwell took the stand. Soujiro never would have noticed the man in a crowd; he was well dressed, but Soujiro knew nothing of local fashions, and the smooth skinned, white haired man had nothing of the presence that Soujiro had come to expect from truly great men. But the crowd knew him, and they _roared_.

Their cheers came, not just as a sound to be heard, but as a force. He had fought a few people who had tried to intimidate him with their _chi_ , and this was nearly the same. Cromwell's soul wasn't just in his body; it was in the entire _city._ Soujiro smiled and waited for him to speak.

The emperor took a moment to bask in the adulation of the masses like a cat in the sun before he raised his arms, silencing them. "People of Albion!" he cried out, his voice magically enhanced to reach the edges of the crowd. "The Royalists have fallen, and _we—are—victorious_!"

The crowd cheered, and Soujiro shouted and jumped up and down with them, partially to blend in, but mostly to spot a gap in the press of bodies wide enough to squeeze through. Oh, there was one, just a little to the left and then he could move forward a few meters.

"Soon," Cromwell bellowed, "all of Halkeginia will be united under the banner of the Reconquista!"

"Yay, Reconquista!" Soujiro shouted along with the crowd, moving closer.

"Just as all of Albion is now one!"

"Yay, Albion!"

"The tyranny of the Royal Family is at an end!"

"Hooray!"

"And the last of their line has fallen with the traitors at Newcastle!"

Soujiro didn't understand how the Royal Family could be both tyrants _and_ traitors. You needed something old and established to betray against, but the crowd at least made sense of Cromwell's words and cheered vigorously. Soujiro, though, remembered Newcastle and had spoken with Wales the night before he died.

 _What are you willing to die for?_

He never had anything worth dying for. But there was always something to kill for.

"The Royal family," he continued, "has long glutted themselves upon the labors of the righteous sons of Albion, and bled us dry, taxing us to support their indulgences."

The crowd booed, but Soujiro didn't join them. He was worried he'd get his cheers and boos mixed up. Instead, he finally made it to the front. To get any further, he'd have to get past a line of spearmen who had been tasked with the job of looking unfriendly. Behind them was twenty feet of empty space and then a line of mages. Then there was the stage, about ten feet off the ground, with another line of mages in nicer uniforms. Twenty feet forward, ten feet up, and only three lines of protection. Was Cromwell using himself as bait, or was he just that dumb?

"They have robbed their own people as surely as any band of pirates, defiled our daughters in their beds for their own pleasure, and in defiance of the will of God, they have even consorted with elves, time and time again!"

More booing. Soujiro ignored them as he studied the situation. There were plenty of guards around the square, but not nearly enough. They'd be busy containing the crowd, which would erupt in a panic as soon as Soujiro attacked. Mr. Shishio always said that all a crowd needed was the right spark, and this crowd was already frenzied.

"But did the elves save them from the wrath of God?" Cromwell demanded. "Did they?"

The crowd chorused the negative, and Soujiro made his decision. Louise had told him not to do anything stupid, and he'd have to be an idiot to pass up such a golden opportunity. "Are you ready, Mr. Derflinger?"

"Partner, this is literally what I was made for," his sword replied. "I could do this in my sleep."

"No!" Cromwell said. "For we have a power greater than any devilry upon this world. We have the ancient Void, restored for this our promised day! The power of Brimir blazes upon the land once more, and no traitor, heathen, heretic, or demon will stand against us! The hand of God supports us, my people, and _we_ _—will—never—fall!"_

Soujiro hopped over the spearman in front of him. Even without a running start, a jump like that was as easy as a game. As he landed, the second row of guards pointed their wands at him, but he broke into a run and that was all he needed. He leapt onto the stage past the final line, flicked his sword from his sheath and cut Cromwell in two.

That should have been the end of it. It usually was. He killed quickly so there was no response, no pain. But there was pain. Getting your vitals sliced in half? That was nothing, but Cromwell turned just enough to look him in the eye as he died, and Soujiro knew _exactly_ what he felt.

 _Nothing is worth dying for._

 _I don't want to die._

 _Please, oh God, please, I need more time._

And Soujiro killed him.

No, he didn't just kill him. He took away _everything_ he had.

The guards around him pointed their wands and attacked.

He screamed.

WWW

She screamed.

Louise didn't know what had happened. One second Cromwell was on stage ranting Reconquista rhetoric, and the next Soujiro was standing over his dead body, waiting to be attacked.

Had he planned this? _Stay back, just in case something goes wrong._ But this wasn't the plan at all. They were supposed to watch and wait until they saw an opportunity, not—not _this_.

"Run!" she shouted. She didn't always understand her familiar, but Soujiro always did what she told him to.

But not this time. Cromwell's honor guard struck to avenge their emperor, shooting blasts of fire, ice, and lightning, but their spells veered off course and were drawn to Soujiro's sword. He stood unharmed, while Derflinger exploded into light.

Then he vanished.

And people died.

WWW

IF YOU'RE STRONG.

 _Nothing is worth dying for._ A new truth. One that fit into every crevice in his soul.

YOU LIVE.

Soujiro wanted to live more than anything. His mind was free to wander when he was calm, but when he opened his heart to use Derflinger's magic to its fullest, there was only one question, and only one answer.

IF YOU'RE WEAK.

He didn't want to die, and he would pay any price to live.

YOU DIE.

In blood, if he had to.

He screamed, a tide of terror and desperation spilling out of him, and he buried his sword in the first mage that attacked him up to the hilt. It was sloppy, a distant, lucid part of his mind thought as he ripped the sword from the man's body. It only took five inches of steel to kill a man; anything else was a waste of energy. But Soujiro couldn't hear his mind whisper, not when his heart was screaming.

And it happened again. He killed again, took a life, took _everything,_ just so he could continue to draw breath. They cast spells at him because he killed them, and he sliced through them again and again because they tried to kill him. He screamed with them, and it rained blood.

WWW

This was not part of the plan. This was madness.

Louise and Kirche huddled against the wall, trying not to get trampled to death. Literally. If she fell, the panicked, fleeing masses wouldn't stop to wonder what they were stepping on in their rush to get away, and neither would the lines of mageknights charging inward to avenge their emperor.

She caught a glimpse of Soujiro during one of the few moments he stopped long enough to be seen. He was turning more and more red as the blood of his enemies covered more of his clothes and skin. The only part of him that wasn't stained crimson was his sword, bursting with light like a shard of the sun. How long had Derflinger been magical? Well, the talking sword had always been magical, but Louise had no idea that the rusted weapon had ever ever been magically _useful_.

"We have to do something!" Louise said, shouting to be heard over the din.

"Like what?" Kirche demanded. "I can flirt and burn things, Louise. I mean, I can give you relationship advice on what to do when you're dating someone who's nuts, but that's it."

"We need a distraction so he can escape!"

"I can take my top off or light a building on fire, and that's about it."

Her eyes lit up. "That could work!"

"I'm going to have to stop you right there and say—"

"Fireball!" Louise shouted, pointing her wand at Soujiro, knowing that whatever she hit, it wouldn't be him. Beyond the town square, part of the imperial palace itself exploded, one of the towers collapsing. Even better, due to some unique quirk of her magic, there was no visible tell that connected her to the effect of her spell. Hopefully that would divert some of the defenders away from the town square.

"So, wanton destruction," Kirche said. "Is that the plan now? I'm asking, because it's starting to look like we're just throwing crazy at the wall to see what sticks."

An icicle impaled the wall above them and Tabitha dropped from the sky, perching on it. "Shouldn't be here."

"Tabitha!" Louise said. "What happened there? Why is Soujiro doing this?"

Tabitha shook her head. "Broken."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Kirche stepped in front of her. "Tabitha, wonderful to have you back. We're all in a screwed pickle right now, so I'll need you to say something clever."

"Withdraw."

Kirche nodded. "I love it."

"What?" Louise said. "Withdraw? We can't leave now! Soujiro needs our help."

Tabitha shook her head. "Can't help. Leave."

"No. There is no way I'm leaving my own familiar surrounded by people trying to kill him."

"That boy seems to be handling it pretty well," Kirche said, peering over the crowd. "They're running out of guards, and he looks like he's still getting warmed up."

Was that true? Louise hadn't been in enough situations like this (none) to tell, but she doubted that Kirche had either. She pointed a finger at Tabitha. "This is your fault, you know. You were supposed to be watching out for him! Why did you let this happen?"

Tabitha gave her a look without anger or apology. Instead, she pointed at Louise with her staff and made her fly.

WWW

Louise, Kirche, Tabitha, and Guiche waited in a forest outside Londinium. Louise wasn't pouting—that would have been immature and childish—but she was sullen and unwilling to look anyone in the eye. Not at Tabitha, because Louise had been wrong to blame her for what happened; not at Kirche, because she had been right to vote against the assassination plan and Louise had been wrong; and not at Guiche, because she didn't want him to feel left out.

She spent most of the time staring at a hole in the ground, waiting for Soujiro to come back.

"So," Guiche said slowly, "what happened?"

Kirche sighed. "We told you. We went to see the emperor give a speech, Soujiro killed him in broad daylight in front of everyone, then he started killing everyone else, and the rest of us did the smart thing and ran away like gutless cowards."

"No I didn't," Louise said.

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. Tabitha and I ran away like gutless cowards, and we dragged Louise with us because we're not heartless ones."

"You're right," Louise said, shooting her a glare. "It sure would have been heartless to abandon a friend in a place like that."

Kirche shrugged. "We would have brought Soujiro with us, but he was feeling a lot more murdery. But if you want to go back for him, the hole's right there."

Louise looked away and mumbled something incoherent and impolite. She couldn't think of anything they could have done better than what they already tried, but darn it, she was _not_ going to be pleasant company.

Guiche cleared his throat. "I admit, I'm still confused, but it seems to me that we just finished assassinating the leader of the Reconquista and the de facto emperor of Albion, and we are currently sitting next to a tunnel that connects where we are with the inn where we were staying, and it might be wise to relocate to a different … kingdom."

Louise stood up. "We are _not_ leaving him!"

"Actually," Kirche said, "that's a good point. Louise, I'm sorry, but I told you I could give you some advice about dating crazy, and here it is. If there's a chance that he's going to get you killed, you might want to reconsider your options. Hanging out here isn't too helpful and it's terrifically dangerous, so maybe we should do as I've been suggesting for a while now and _go home._ "

"No!" Louise said. "We … we …" She looked around, but found nothing encouraging. None of them wanted to leave Soujiro behind, but they had come to Albion to save her, and there was no guarantee that they could save him by staying. Besides, if they had to sacrifice one to save four, that wasn't cowardly, that was just … good arithmetic.

And this was what she had accepted when she agreed to go on this mission for Princess Henrietta. There was no way of knowing how many of them would come back alive, but when she was given the choice, she decided to push her luck even further and try to topple an empire. She, Louise the Zero, the worst mage in the history of magecraft, could not help but toy with death.

Before they could make a decision, a blast of wind shot out of the tunnel. Louise panicked, thinking that the Reconquista had followed them back here, but it wasn't a spell, it was Soujiro! He was covered in blood, but he was alive and he was _back._

"Well," Guiche said, "that's that. Glad to see this resolved. _Now_ we can go back home." He waved his wand, and the ground sank as the tunnel collapsed.

Soujiro didn't move. He stood still as a statue, blood dripping from his red-drenched clothes and the tip of his rusted sword.

 _How much of that is yours?_ Louise thought. "Soujiro?" she asked. "Are you hurt?"

 _Drip. Drip._ He turned slowly, stiffly, and there was blood on his face, a desperate smile on his lips, and tears in his eyes.

Then he screamed.

"Soujiro!" She took a step towards him before he lashed out. She could barely see his blurred movements, but she felt the wind and the chips of bark flying through the air, and then a tree fell crashing to the ground.

"Get out!" he yelled, eyes unfocused.

"What?"

"Get out of my head!"

Louise heard Tabitha began chanting a spell. _No, no, no!_ "What's wrong?"

"It's all wrong! It used to make _sense_ , and now it's a mess of screaming, slaughtering—I shouldn't be the the on to—he said if I was _strong_ —but it's not enough! It's _not_ enough!"

Part of Louise wanted to walk up to him and slap some sense into him, but that seemed like a tremendously stupid idea. No, he was hurting because … why? He had told her about this the night before, but all she had understood from that conversation was that it had made sense to him.

"You were just doing what I told you to," Louise said. He felt guilty, and he needed someone to blame besides himself. "It was my decision and I gave the order." This was how it worked in war, right? The foot soldiers only needed to obey, and the commander dealt with the consequences. "If you need to blame someone, blame me. It's not your fault, Soujiro. It's mine."

WWW

Could a drowning man hear reason? Soujiro couldn't, and he drowned in screams.

He had lost himself at the start. He had been ready to so he could use Derflinger's power, and when they tried to kill him, he killed them first. They tried to run, so he chased them down. The screamed, and he screamed with them.

He wore their insides, breathed in their images, and silenced their cries as best he could, but alive or dead, they would _not stop screaming!_

Had he ever understood this, what a terrible thing it was to be _strong_? To be unstoppable, even by his own power? Maybe if he had been weaker, or if he had learned how not to kill … but no, he had never learned that.

He hadn't run when the fight was over, or when he was overwhelmed. He ran when he wanted to escape from who he was, but his damned and bloodied self ran with him like his shadow, memories and all.

Then Louise began to speak. A drowning man would grab onto an anchor if it was within reach, and Soujiro latched onto her words.

"It's not my fault," he whispered, repeating her. That was … nice. Like Mr. Himura's sword that protected the weak, it was something he _wanted_ to believe. "It's yours."

He felt the pain of everyone he killed. He had always been like that, but he had gotten worse at not feeling it. But that wasn't fair! It was her fault, so shouldn't she be the one hurting? And he _hurt_ so much, like there was a hole in his chest … like he was dying.

But that wasn't fair! He couldn't die, he was … strong.

 _If you're strong …_

He was strong. Strong enough to kill. He could still feel the resistance in his arm as his sword cut through armor, flesh, and bone.

 _If you're weak …_

He didn't want to die. If he had to kill everyone in front of him to draw another breath, he'd call it a good trade.

 _Yes,_ he thought. _A good trade._ Besides, it was her fault, wasn't it? He'd make it quick.

"Um, Partner?" Derflinger asked, recognizing his stance. _Shuntensatsu. Sword sheathed, foot back, low center._ "I don't usually do advice, but you might want to rethink this."

"Soujiro?" Louise asked.

"If you're strong, you live," he whispered. "If you're weak, it's all your fault." He could hear them screaming in his head, Cromwell, Wardes, countless others. Even when they never had time to scream when he killed them, they screamed now.

And he heard the rain, pattering down against the shed he was hiding under, clutching a wakizashi with trembling hands, as though that was enough to make the monsters go away.

But it wasn't. In the beginning, the end, and the now, there had only ever been one way to get rid of them.

He struck, but a shard of ice fell from the sky and landed between them. Tabitha's spell. There was more ice surrounding the four mages, and it coalesced into a smooth wall. He slashed at it, but the magic of his sword didn't affect Tabitha's ice like it had the other spells that had been cast against him, and the strange energy that had filled him during his fight against Wardes and the Reconquista was gone entirely. He didn't feel tired—all he felt was pain and screams—but it was like his bones were hollow in his arms. He flailed against it weakly, determined to wear it down, but after each strike, the ice shimmered and healed itself, becoming as smooth as a mirror.

He looked in that frozen mirror, and saw himself.

His reflection stared back at him, sword raised, face twisted, and bloodstained. He wasn't the child hiding from the monster. He _was_ the monster children hid from. He had been that monster for ten years.

He drew his sword back and struck at the monster that was self, plunged it deep into the chest of his reflection. It was suicide and salvation, and when his mirror self returned the blow, it was only a phantom pain, an expected wound that never bled. The ice shattered, and Soujiro felt something hard within himself shatter with it, and for one sublime moment there was silence.

Then he saw Louise cowering in front of him, eyes wide and imploring, looking so much like the frightened child he once was that it hurt all over again. _Please, don't hurt me,_ she seemed to say, seeing him as he had just learned to see himself. _Please make the monsters go away._

But the monsters never went away. Either they killed you, or they killed _with_ you. That was the price of strength. The strong never had to fear others, but the weak never had to fear themselves, and Soujiro was still just as scared as he was before.

He barely noticed Tabitha passed out from exhaustion or Kirche pointing her wand at him. All he could see was himself as he had been, and himself as he was now. He could not kill that monster, but he could run. Yes, to run: the last refuge of the weak. So he ran, taking that monster far away from Louise, his friends, and anyone he knew, to hide it somewhere it would never hurt anyone again.

WWW

A/n And that's another chapter, the longest one yet unless I miss my guess. Thank you Chroniklerx for editing this, and thank you readers for reviewing it. Hopefully I'll be able to publish the next chapter … while it's still 2018.


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